


Wolfgirl

by SanSanFanFan



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alaska, F/M, Librarian Sansa, Modern AU, Werewolves... yes you heard me right, Wildlife photographer Sandor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-08
Updated: 2015-02-03
Packaged: 2018-02-28 16:22:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 76,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2739032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SanSanFanFan/pseuds/SanSanFanFan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the small Alaskan town of Bearpaw, Sandor Clegane has found a place where he can drink and maybe take a few wildlife pictures to raise cash to buy more drink.  Life is simple, until he meets the new librarian. And the wolf.</p><p>Gift fic as a part of a craft exchange for Three Hills who wanted a HighschoolAU with a werewolf Sansa... I might have changed a few things from that prompt ;D</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ThreeHills](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThreeHills/gifts).



He woke from a blessedly dreamless night’s sleep to the sharp glare of the sun ripping through his eyelids to pierce his throbbing brain behind.  He groaned, remembering the tumbling down blackout blind he’d meant to fix… what?  A week ago? Two weeks ago? Eyelids flickering, he sneered up at the sun.

“Fuck you.” He mumbled, senses returning to tell him that one of his arms was hanging down from the too small cabin bed and touching the floor. His fingers scrabbled about, knocking empties.  He counted, hating the nausea that came in increasing waves with the numbers.  _Weak, too fucking weak_ , said a deeper voice than his in his head.  He screwed his eyes shut to push it away.

He’d drunk the rest of his supply.  When he’d first come here the first crate of beers and spirits had been meant to last the Summer.  The second had meant to last three months.  The third, two months.  The last few had made it to a month.  This one had lasted three fucking weeks. 

He raised himself on the bed, pushing knuckles into the too thin mattress, hair falling over a furrowed brow as muscles protested about moving after hours passed out.  A book fell from the side of the bed as he slowly swung his legs about. Fuck, he now remembered finishing the last of those, just before the drinking got serious.  So he was out of bloody books as well!  At least he’d put in some requests with that old biddy a week or so back that should have been filled by now.  But it would mean a trip into town a week earlier than he’d planned for.  A week that would have given him time to prepare for the stares and the jokes.  Fuck!

He could wait.  Leave the booze and the books for now.  He had food for another week at least.  He could forgo those two other things.  He could pretend he wasn’t getting through both quicker and quicker in the quiet that he’d thought he wanted.  A quiet that was actually a slowly opening door to his fucking mind and memories.  A door with nothing but shadows behind it.

That decided it for him.  He didn’t dream when he was on the bottle.  He didn’t see the boy…

He groaned and stood up, near hitting his head on the roof of the trailer before memory kicked in and he angled his head and body to avoid it.  He was still dressed, of course, jeans and a stained and faded t-shirt with some band’s name on it. Some band he might have gone to see once.  Back when he gave a shit.  He moved to the door of his cramped home, not even noticing when his hand grabbed the ready and waiting camera hanging next to it, until it was settled around his neck and banging against his stomach muscles.

Outside it was a beautiful Alaskan morning, light shining over mountain tops and glinting off of the water and grey stones. 

Sandor growled at it, squinting in the light and spitting out the bile in his mouth.  A beer at Bronn’s when he bought his supplies from the twat would sort out the wretched thing that had once been his tongue.  He shambled over to the edge of the low river, not caring that his bare feet were walking on stones with sword sharp edges.  Crouching, he cupped his hands and splashed the freezing water over his face, rubbing it through his hair and washing his mouth out with it.  He rubbed one side of his face with his hand, avoiding touching the other side entirely.

A little more with it now, his eyes started their usual search.  First along the shoreline he was on, the over to the other side of the winding river bed.  Nothing.  Fucking nothing.  He was going to kill that Mormont wanker.  Not a single sign for weeks.  It had started promisingly enough.  Paw prints that had even wandered near to his beat up old trailer home and the flatbed truck he towed it with.  Big fuckers.  A male probably.  There were silver fish flashing through the clear water of the river.  It was only a matter of patience.  And Sandor had all the time in the bloody world. 

But the paw prints had gotten old, rubbed away by rain and time.  If the bears had been about here, they’d wandered off.  And he’d not had a fucking sniff of a bloody photo worth selling.  He’d farted about with some scenery pics.  Enough to keep the wolves from the door and keep him in supplies from Bronn’s and the tiny food market in town.  But hardly the National fucking Geographic type shots he’d been thinking of when he’d driven to this cold, arse end of no where Alaskan river.

He growled and stood.  Town it was then.  Books first, so he could get that old biddy’s muttering disapproval out of the way before he sank into a dark corner at Bronn’s and nursed a few beers.  Then he could escape the town of curious eyes and get back to his cramped fucking trailer.

***

He was looking down as he entered the ‘library’, eyes still hiding from the brightness of the day behind the high collar of his padded snow jacket.  Fucking joke that, the shop front converted into three rooms of shelves was hardly a bloody library! But the old bat was proud of the little collection, and of the speed at which she could get him the books he wanted from other connected libraries in the county.  Daft old biddy was also proud of her ability to resist the ‘demon drink’ and of her never ending fucking faith.  So when he looked up, when he reached the little makeshift counter by the door, he expected to see her triumphant face, smugly registering the much larger man’s hangover and the general fucking mess of him. But it was a completely different face that greeted him with a warm smile and bright blue eyes.

“Good morning! How can I help you, sir?!”

She was beautiful.  Young too.  She might have been dressed like the old biddy in some kind of pale blouse and a blue-grey knitted cardigan.  But there was a shape under the conservative clothes that Sandor hadn’t seen for a long fucking time, especially not since he’d been staying in Bearpaw.  It was a shape you didn’t get much in a logging town where the men outnumbered the women five to one.  And most of the time even that ‘one’ was over forty, and had taken the insulating properties of fat to heart during the long Alaskan winters.  This ‘one’ was no more than twenty, and with long fucking red hair that flowed to her waist. Shit. 

He felt her eyes taking him in.  Yes girl, I stink of booze!  Yes, these are clothes I’ve been wearing for days!  Yes, those are burns, and yes they are fucking horrible!

“Where’s the old woman?” he snapped the words out, his embarrassment over his appearance and smell making him short with the girl.  He was also cringing at her bright and sunny welcome.  Fuck that false courtesy! 

She looked sad for a moment, that smile faltering, and to be honest, he missed it almost immediately. Even if the glow of it had reminded him of the jarring sunlight that had woken him this morning from his drunken sprawl.  Even if he hated all that fake American ‘hospitality’.

“I’m afraid Ms Mordane died a few weeks back, sir.  Passed away in her sleep.  Were you close, sir?”

“Don’t fucking call me sir!” He spat out the words, and the girl almost took a step back.

He frowned.  She didn’t deserve that.  But his head was pounding and he just wanted his books and to be on his way.  He hadn’t had a week to prepare for the looks in town.  And he certainly hadn’t had time to prepare for this little ray of sunshine. A stupid thought of coming back another time, showered, combed and brushed, wearing a clean shirt, flashed through his mind.  But he pushed it away.

“I have books on order.” He nodded towards the shelves behind her where Mordane had usually put the requests for him.

“Yes, yes, of course.” She lowered her eyes for just a moment, before meeting his again, with new steel in those blue beauties.  “And your name, sir?”

She said it in an arch tone, and it was all he could do not to smile darkly.  She had some balls this one.  She hid them behind sweet smiles and ‘sirs’ but there was something else there.  He watched her raise one perfect eyebrow.

“Sandor Clegane. C-L-“

“I’m sure I can find it.” She turned and he could see the rest of her then.  A long tweed skirt down to the backs of her knees covered her up, but it was actually more interesting to have to wonder what the rest of her looked like.  To think about running hands up those skirts and underneath to…

“I’m sorry! I think I might have reshelved them! I’m new to her system and maybe-”

“I can get them. I know where they’d be-”

Before he could move she was around the high counter and standing in front of him, skirt swirling.  Was that a petticoat he caught a glimpse of? God, this girl was like some kind of Victorian wet dream!

“No, sir. It’s my job.” She said the last word with relish.  As though it was a new thing to her, to have a job.  She turned and walked towards the rows and rows of shelves.  Sandor followed after, noticing for the first time how busy the library was.  Men were everywhere.  Scouring the shelves, pretending to be taken by heavy reference books, or sitting with a paper at one the few tables.  Logging men, who Sandor suspected barely knew how to fucking read, were spending their free time in the library instead of Bronn’s, the only bar in town.  Fucking dogs, sniffing around the red head’s skirts!  He even saw old Selmy there, who gave him an embarrassed smile.

“You aint from here.”

“No.” She was almost as curt as him with that ‘no’.  Conversation over.  Like fuck it was.

“Where you from? Can’t place the accent.”

She was stepping up a wooden ladder in the fiction section.  He could have reached the top shelves without stretching, but he let her get on with it, enjoying the sight of her getting up onto her tiptoes in those completely impractical boots with the tiny heel.

“I’ve moved around a lot.  The UK originally.”

Another Brit? What were the chances?!

“Yeah? Me too.  Scotland. And you?”

“Further South.” She cut him off again.  She passed a book down for him. “Here you are.  Sharpe’s Enemy.  Sharpe’s Sword and Sharpe’s Honour should be up here too.  You like Bernard Cornwell then?”  She passed him down the other books.

“Aye.”

“Have you read any of his Arthurian-”

“Knights and all that shit? No.”

He revelled in her dour look.  Well, fuck her. ‘Further South’.  If she wasn’t going to be pleasant…! But then he thought back over his words with her so far.  Shit, he’d hardly been on his best behaviour.

“Maybe I’ll try one.”

She smiled and passed him a fourth book.  There was a knight in armour racing through the snow.  “The Winter King, eh?” he grumbled. “Like we don’t have enough bloody snow around here already.”

She smiled, an almost shy thing that flickered across her lips.  It was far more honest than the one she’d greeted him with and he found himself twisting his lips into something like a smile in return.

She went to step down from the ladder, and instinctively he offered her a hand.  She paused but took it.  He was surprised at the warmth of her skin, and parts of him were all too keen on the soft smallness of her hand.  But a greater part of him was too busy gloating as the scarred drunkard from the trailer home got to be the first man in town to touch the new red head.  He felt the eyes of the men in the room boring into the back of his head.

“Thank you.”

“Ain’t nothing.”  His mouth went to form more words, but he had nothing to call her.

“What’s your name, girl?”

She paused, and then he saw the lie being prepared. “Sansa Poole.” Another one hiding from their past in this shit hole town. 

“How’d you get the job of librarian, Sansa?”

She smiled and he released her hand. “I wanted it.”

He found that shape forming on his lips again.  A smile.  Christ, this girl was dangerous.  All stiff backed and proper, but with an edge he liked.  But he was doubtful that she saw much in the old drunk that she liked…

He followed her back to the counter and watched her methodically check out the books for him, typing details into the decades old computer Mordane had been so attached to.

“There’s no address on your account?”

“I live out by the river.  Got a trailer.  It aint much.”  That was the most information he’d offered about himself in a bloody long time.

“And if you don’t return the books, how are we to send you the fine?” She raised that eyebrow again, putting a Mordane like edge into her voice.

“E-mail me. She must have had that address-”

Sansa looked surprised, and he found himself explaining.

“I’m hooked up with a dish.  I need to be able to send out my pictures-” Why the fuck had he said that?

“Pictures? What kind of pictures?” She was leaning forward on the counter, eager suddenly.  Fuck, if that eagerness, that keenness was ever directed at him… bloody hell!

“Nature shots.  Animals hunting.  Stuff like that.”

“You’re artistic?!” She seemed very surprised.

“You don’t need to be artistic.  You just need quick reflexes and a good fucking camera.” He snapped back at her.

He heard someone sniggering back among the bookshelves.  Whatever advantage he might have gained in this race by helping her down from the ladder, someone obviously thought he was quickly losing it!

And she was serious looking again, that rod back firmly in her spin, her lips thin and disproving. All eagerness erased.

“Here are your books, Mr Clegane.” She pushed them towards him and he took them in his big hands, watching as her fingertips retreated from his.

“Have a nice day!” She chirped at his retreating back as he left, scowling.

***

Bronn’s was the quietest he had ever seen it.  Even during the day loggers would find their way here like salmon heading back to their spawning grounds to mate.  Although, the few women who frequented this dingy bar did not have the best potential as mates.  Unless you liked them caked in make-up and more interested in your boss than in you.  Mormont was the only man with any money in this back water town and his succession of expensive wives had started out in Bronn’s messing about with regulars, before finally catching his eye. 

Sandor never came here for that. He had a deal with Bronn for a regular supply of booze and the man had been good enough to offer him a discount, knowing a fellow drunk when he met one.  But today he took a seat at the bar as the man came over, rubbing a glass on his apron.

“Didn’t expect you fer a week.”

“Ran dry.”

Bronn didn’t judge him, how could he?  He just nodded and went about grabbing a crate from under the bar.

“No rush.  I’ll have a beer here.”

“Hair of the dog?” Laughed a round man further down the bar, and Sandor fought back the reaction to the words.  No one here knew about _that_.  No one here could ever know about _that_.  It was just Dontos being Dontos. 

“Here you go.” Bronn opened one for him, and he chugged some of it back, feeling the first buzz of it bringing the world back into some kind of order.

“You seen the new librarian?” He tried to keep it light.  But Bronn groaned almost straight away as Dontos laughed.

“Have I seen her? Have I seen her? Fucking hell, she’s walking through my nightmares every night.” groaned Bronn, rolling his eyes.

“Nightmares?” an image from one of his recent ones flashed through his mind, and Sandor drank again.

“She’s stealing all my day trade! The whole town’s been sniffing around her, and of course, little miss prim and proper doesn’t bloody drink!”

“Oh please, like you aint been giving it a go yourself!  Or are you telling us you’ve suddenly got an interest in Maya fucking Angelou!” scoffed Dontos in his high nasal voice.

“I like to read!” But Bronn was smiling.  “I’d like to read her a fucking bedtime story, if you know what I mean!”

“No.” Said Sandor flatly.  He wasn’t enjoying the way the two men were talking about her for some reason.

“Weren’t you after that pilot though? You can’t take all the good ones for yerself!” Whined Dontos.

“Margaery? Yeah, well, she’s hotter than a twin turbine engine, obviously.  But she only blows into town once a month or so…” Bronn gave a half smile.

“And you’ve still not sealed the deal yet!” Laughed Dontos again and Sandor was reminded why he preferred to do his drinking back at his trailer.

“So, she doesn’t drink here?” Sandor asked. “The librarian girl?”

“Girl is right.  She’s not twenty one, yet, so they say.  Although, I’d let her drink, if she brought the men back with her.”

Dontos sniggered.  “There’s a lot I’d let her do, if you get my meaning.”

Sandor sneered.  He swigged back the rest of the beer and stood.  “I’ll have my order now.”

Bronn shrugged and went back to loading bottles in the crate.  Sandor counted them as they went in.  And thought about how quickly the crate would be empty again.

***

The first howl came not long after he’d opened the first whiskey bottle.  He’d meant to stick to a few beers while he started the bloody book about knights, but sitting in his folding canvas chair by the low campfire, one beer had become more, and had then become a swig at the burning liquid.  Again.

Other howls followed.  And he was tempted to howl along with them.  He was a fucking dog after all.  The fucking Hound they’d called him.  And dogs could howl like wolves when the mood took them.  The moon was big and fat and he could see the appeal in raising a toast to her.  So he did.  But with the whole bottle of whiskey.  What was left in it.

“Here’s to you, you big old bitch!”

He knew he wasn’t making any sense.  But the alcohol was warming his blood and bringing strange thoughts to mind.  The book lay in his lap still, reminding him of the librarian.  Reminding him of that flash of petticoat and of those too delicate boots.  Reminding him of the red, red hair.  She was all manners and smiles.  A little bird chirping out ‘sirs’ and ‘have a nice days’.  Out of those sweet pink lips.

He leant back against the too small chair, letting his head drop back.  When he finally summoned the strength to bring it up right again, his long hair falling in thick strands over his face, it was standing there, watching him.

“A fucking wolf.” He said, fighting back laughter.  He scrabbled quickly for the camera at his chest.  But even he wasn’t fool enough to be drinking with a seriously expensive piece of equipment at hand.  The beast just watched him with a measured gaze.  Strange, its eyes seemed more silver in this light than yellow.  And was it the fire, or was there a reddish tinge to its fur?

“Pleased to make your acquaintance.” He said, trying out some courtesies of his own for once.  The wolf just stared at him.  He dipped down to where he’d left his plate and flung the bone from the steak at the beast.  It jumped on it and cracked the marrow out of it.

“Good boy.” He muttered, returning to his bottle.  His eyes were lowering, and there was a fucking wolf sharing his dinner with him.  If he wasn’t careful, he’d wake up in the morning with a leg chewed clean off.  He laughed darkly at that thought, and stood.

“If you’ll excuse me, I’m going for a piss and then I’m going to my bed.”

He made quick work of the first promise, turning away for a moment to piss against the stones.  And the second was fulfilled as he slammed open the door to his trailer and shrugged out of thick padded coat and boots alike.  He flung himself backwards on the too small bed, swearing at himself for forgetting to close the door, but not caring enough to get up to do it.

That was when the wolf followed him in.

He knew that he should be concerned.  Fuck that.  He should be a bit more than fucking concerned!  A wild creature was in his home.  And it’d not even huffed and puffed and blown its way in!

“Are you the big bad wolf, boy?”

But he didn’t seem to be able to bring himself to care.  Even when it moved further in, those strange eyes glowing in the darkness, looking at the mess of his trailer.  It sniffed at unwashed pots, unwashed clothes, and then… at his unwashed body.  Its nose was wet and cold on his fingertips as they drifted down towards the floor again.  Then, before he could react, it was placing its paws on the edge of his bed, and leaping up, standing across him as he lay close to passing out.  It dipped its muzzle towards him, meeting his lowering eyes with its own.

“Don’t expect me to spoon you.  And don’t take all the blankets.” He mumbled as unconsciousness took him.  His last thought was of how heavy and warm the beast was.  How warm it was, and how lucky that was, because he really hadn’t gotten up to close the door, had he?

***

He woke with the very familiar ache in his head and his belly. 

And with an unfamiliar breast in his hand.

It had been so long since he’d last held one, that it took him a moment to recognise the soft weight of it in his palm, the shape and the curve of it.  Fingertips explored for a moment and found a nipple that hardened at his touch, urging a low and sleepy moan from… shit! Had he stayed at Bronn’s last night and brought back one of Mormont’s fucking hopefuls?  She’d be well disappointed as soon as she realised he wasn’t one of Jorah’s men, or the boss himself.  And as soon as she saw his scars…

Whoever it was, she was moving against him in a very pleasing way, erasing all his thoughts of how sick he was feeling.  The warmth of her arse was placed firmly against his the crotch of his jeans and he was hardening as she made little movements and sounds in the last stages of her sleep.  Fuck it, he thought, so what if she was one of the hopefuls?  She was here and she was naked.  He ran his fingertips over a delightfully flat belly, tracing a line around the dip of her navel before finding a way between her legs where curls waited for him.  Where she was warm, and where she was surprisingly wet. 

He risked opening his eyes a little, trying to block out as much of the bright morning light as possible, but also trying to make out who he’d managed to convince into his bed.  His vision was filled with light.  Light and redness.  Red hair, cascading over a pale white shoulder, and down to where his head lay behind her. 

Red hair?!  Fuck!

She was stirring, her sleepy little noises replaced by quiet moans as his fingers still explored her slowly, even through his surprise at finding her here.

And then she went very quiet and very, very still.

All of a sudden she sat bolt upright, grabbed at a shirt he’d left hanging off of a chair, and bolted for the open door.  He had just a moment’s glimpse of a bare back, a narrow waist, and a perfect arse, before she was out the door, red hair and long legs flying as she charged off across the stony river bank.

“Wait!” He reached out for her.  But she was long gone, running faster than he could have imagined the oh-so sensible librarian could. 

He groaned, trying to fit hazy memories back together.  Had he met her at Bronn’s and somehow got her drunk enough to come back to the trailer…? But she didn’t drink there.  And he certainly didn’t pick up women too drunk to make sensible decisions, like not sleeping with him… And he had left Bronn’s not long after he’d got his supplies… which he’d drunk out on his ripped and fraying folding chair…

A memory of silver eyes came back to him.  The wolf.

“Fucking hell.” He whispered, holding onto his head as he felt it, and everything he thought he knew, fall to pieces.  “The fucking wolf!”


	2. Chapter 2

“Do you have any books on werewolves?”

He wasn’t sure what he expected.  Maybe a scornful laugh or a swift denial, or maybe a flustered panic.  He wasn’t expecting to see concern welling up in those beautiful blue eyes.

“Did I hurt you?” She whispered, looking him over quickly as they stood in the third room of the library.  The books in her hands were soon forgotten, placed haphazardly on the nearest shelf. What did she see this time when she looked at him? He’d showered before he’d driven in, even found a reasonably clean shirt… then he’d sat in the truck outside, planning to wait until the library was emptier.  But that never happened, so he’d taken one quick look in his rear view mirror at the mad man with wolves on his mind, and then marched in.

“No, lass. If anything you helped me-”

She was walking away! He followed after, ready to grab at her arm and turn her back when she announced in a clear and authoritative voice. “The library is closing early for lunch.  Please gentlemen, you can come back in the afternoon.”

The scruffy men grumbled and complained, but Sandor gave them a stern look and they moved smartly out of the small library.   When they were gone, he saw her, still facing away from him, take a deep breath and then straighten her back.  Today she had tied her flowing hair back in some sort of tight knot.  That and the dull brown skirt and cardigan she was wearing had him thinking of old Ms Mordane again, so that as she turned, a severe look on her face, he almost expected to see the old woman’s glasses at the end of Sansa’s far lovelier nose.

“Sit, please, Mr Clegane.”

“I think given that I woke up this morning with your tit in my hand we can use first names!”

Her look became even more serious.  And he begrudgingly took a seat at the table, pushing away the discarded newspapers and books.

She sat down primly opposite him, resting her hands neatly in her lap as she straightened her back even further like there was a fucking rod shoved through it.

“There are a few very important things you should know, Mr Clegane.  First, that has never, _ever_ , happened before.”

There was something about the emphasis she put on that which caught his attention.  “What? _Never?_ ”

She blushed.  She fucking blushed! The severe librarian act tumbling down for a second as the girl emerged.  Well, she was still young, so maybe she hadn’t ever even been with a man.  He shifted in his seat as various lewd thoughts came to mind.

“The wolf has never gone into someone’s house-”

“Their bed-”

“ _Never_.  And the wolf’s hunting range is to the north of the town.  I don’t know how it ended up at your place to the south…”

“You talk like it isn’t you?!”

“It isn’t me, Mr Clegane.  That’s the second thing you need to know.  The wolf is not me, it is something that happens to me.  And I don’t remember anything the next day.  It’s like drinking too much, acting like you would never normally act, and then passing out… at least, so I believe…” She gave him a fucking pointed look then! “But sometimes small details come back.  For example, I only remembered you throwing the wolf that steak bone, just then, when I saw you again.”

So it was true then.  He’d come in, all smug certainty about how he was going to shake her up by asking for books on werewolves.  But part of him had still not believed, not really.  Part of him still wondered if there was some other way she could have ended up in his bed. Yeah, like that would have happened if she wasn’t a ‘drunk’ wolf!

“What else do I need to know, then? Silver bullets and all that shit?”

“Only if you were thinking of trying to kill me, Mr Clegane.  No, I don’t know about silver bullets.  No one’s tried to shoot me.  I leave before anyone can get an idea like that.  And if that’s what you are thinking of-” She was afraid, he saw her hiding it behind her clipped tone with him.  He raised his hands.

“I’ve no desire to shoot you, girl.”

“Good. Then the only other thing you need to know is that we will never talk about this again.  In fact, I would prefer to avoid you entirely.”

The truth stung him.  Fucking hell, she could be a cold bitch!

“You’ve seen the wolf, Mr Clegane.  I look in your eyes and I see that you know.  And I don’t want that reminder.” She stood then, holding out a hand to shake his.  He frowned and took it briefly, giving her a rough shake of his as he stood up.

“Very well, girl. Have it your way.  I don’t come into town all that much anyways.”

He moved to go. “Ah. Sorry.  Mr Clegane.  One more thing.”

He turned back, the frown on his brow easing as he saw her standing there, hands clasped together, head a little lowered, staring at the ground by his feet.  She looked so small suddenly, so unhappy, just moments after she’d been a total bitch queen. He felt something hurting in him, but he shook it off.

“Yes, girl?” his voice softened without him even meaning it to.

“The night before, and the night after, the full moon…” She paused, looking uncomfortable.  Didn’t want to talk about it, that’s what she’d said wasn’t it?! Not with him? Well, fuck her! The anger came back, lightning fast, like it always did.

“Spit it out girl!”

“Just before and just after the full moon… it’s not the wolf.  It’s something… _between_.”

He shrugged. “Nothing to do with me.  You get it to stay up in its hunting grounds and I’ll stay away from town like you want.” Her face fell and he wondered how much control she had over this thing, if she described it as like being drunk and passing out.  _And yeah, dog, you’ve never done anything you’ve regretted when you’ve been drinking, now have you?_ He sneered at that deeper voice in his head.

“Please, Mr Clegane.  Please, lock your trailer door tonight.”

He growled and left.

 ***

It took him a fair while to find the bloody keys.  He started by moving piles of stuff about, but soon he was putting things by, folding away clothes and even doing his fucking washing up in the ice cold water of the river.  He found the keys part way through, but put them to one side until he was done.  He felt like he was… preparing for something. Did he really think she’d be back tonight? She’d seemed so unhappy he couldn’t imagine that the wolf would find its way to him again. The wolf or _whatever_ she was going to be tonight. 

Once he was done, he sat on the bed and looked towards his laptop.  A small pile of DVDs in cases sat by its side.  He’d gone straight to the rental shop after his encounter with her in the library.   They didn’t have a great selection, but he’d found all the werewolf movies that they had, all of them in the horror section.  That told him a lot straight off. 

He’d picked up all that they had, ignoring the spotty kid in the shop’s stares at his face as he’d opened another fucking account.  More bloody paperwork! 

But now that he was faced with the choice of watching them he was reluctant.  What could they tell him anyway? What some dick of a director in Hollywood thought werewolves were about?  The covers in the shop had shown him men in furry costumes covered in blood.  The wolf hadn’t been like that.  The girl wasn’t like that, he was sure of that. 

Sandor reached over and picked up the new Cornwell book instead, trying out a world full of knights and swords again.

He must have fallen asleep at some point, because he woke to the silver light of the moon coming in through the broken blackout blind like some second sun.  He stood, confused for a moment at waking up without a pounding headache or the sweat of a nightmare’s terror.   His eyes darted to the keys, lying by the two ring hot plate. He hadn’t locked the door, had he?!

A sound came from outside.  A scratching. 

He darted to the kitchenette, a hand out for the keys.  But he never made contact, instead he paused, fingers hovering over them in the moon lit darkness.

He watched as the handle to the trailer’s door started turning, his breath stopping for a moment.  But then battle adrenaline kicked in, and he shifted his weight, readying himself for whatever was going to come through the door, eyes scanning the trailer for weapons, knowing where his gun was, but looking for anything closer.  He was a big man, it would take a lot to fucking take him down! But he remembered those beasts on the DVD covers.

The door creaked open. 

She was stood there, silhouetted by the same damn moon that made her change, her arms above her head as she stretched out lithely like some kind of dancer, fingertips hooking around the door, one leg pointed in front of the other. And she was completely naked.

He moved back to the bed, sitting down in near shock as the creature moved into the small space of the trailer, a flowing and undulating dark shadow that moved with a strange grace.  That fucking captivating red hair was a tumbling mess, far longer and thicker than the librarian’s, twisting and falling over her back and front.  But as she moved, completely unashamed, it was failing to cover her breasts.  Unashamed and completely wild.

He swallowed as his eyes drifted over her, making out the lines and curves of her in the dark.  Was there a more sharpened shape to her face, more pointed as though she hunted something? Those strange silver eyes took everything in as her head turned from left to right.  They flashed at him in the black, but she seemed focussed on something else as she searched the trailer, and they left him. Checking for danger, he thought suddenly, not knowing where the thought came from.  He held his hands out, as he had done to the librarian hours before.  Safety here, he thought to her.  And the wolf girl came closer, gracefully crouching at his feet before looking him over again.  Smelling him.

And then suddenly her face was at his neck and he nearly yelled out in surprise.  But she was moving her faces inches from his skin, smelling him more deeply.  He was glad this time that he’d washed before… he had always fucking known hadn’t he, that she was coming here again this night?  Known it deep in his bones and in his flesh.

She paused, her face just in front of his, her jaw lowering slightly, showing him sharply pointed teeth there. Shit!

And then her hands where on his shoulders, and he had a moment’s glimpse of long nails in the place of the perfectly manicured hands miss prim and proper most likely had.  Just a glimpse before she pushed him back onto the bed in one swift move.

Fucking hell, she was strong! Sandor was a big man, muscled and strong with it after years of... work.  He knew he was no bloody lightweight to be tipped back by a fucking slip of a girl.  But she had barely put any effort into the move.  And when she straddled him he found himself unable to rise at all!

“Come on, girl, be gentle!” He tried to play it light, but he was concerned.  There was no sign of Sansa in this wolf girl, even if she was more human looking than the beasts on the DVD cases.   There was no sign of human understanding at all as she tilted her head at his words.  Fucking hell, were those her ears peeking through the masses of red hair, pointed and stretched?!

He managed to get hands to her waist, finding them caught up in the red hair that joined with hair flowing down her back there.  He meant to push her away but she stretched back at his touch, tilting her breasts upwards and exposing her throat.  He half expected her to purr, but that was fucking cats, not wolves.  Instead he near jumped out of his skin when something moved against his jean clad shin. 

“What the hell?!”

Those shining eyes were on him again, and she bared her teeth at his exclamation, growling.  He tried to smooth his features, but part of him was still in shock.  She had a tail! She had a fucking tail and it was brushing across his leg!  A stupid thought occurred to him suddenly, would she wag it if he pleased her?

That thought made him suddenly very, very aware of what she might want from him! And as if the wolf girl knew what he was thinking she started moving above him, drawing her long nails down over his t-shirt. And then her hands slipped up underneath it and those nails were making him gasp as they ran over his chest hair and scratched his nipples.  God! Sansa had never fucking mentioned this in her list of things he should know! Wait, no, she had said that the wolf had never ended up in some strange man’s bed.  And he was pretty certain the girl hadn’t either.  So this was, what, her first time?! 

The temptation to move his hands from her waist to those fucking perfect tits was immense, but he fought it.  But then he groaned as he felt her movements bringing her against him.  He’d been partly hard since first seeing her in the doorway and realising her nakedness, but now it was a severe agony as she rolled her hips against him and made him stiffer than that rod in the librarian’s back.

“Sansa, Sansa, please. Don’t.”

The wolf girl growled, and then kissed him. 

It was such a human gesture he was surprised by it after all her feral movements.  There was a slight nipping at his tongue from her teeth, but it wasn’t an ungentle kiss.  God, he was kissing her back, he hadn’t even realised it until he’d thought about the nipping.  Now the wolf girl was moaning, a low throaty noise somewhere between a woman’s sound and a low growl.

“No.  No! Sansa!” He pulled away.  Her words were ringing in his head. It’s like being drunk, she’d said.  So drunk that you don’t remember anything until the next day, and not much at that.  He’d never been with a drunk girl, and he wasn’t about to start with one who had been twisted and changed by the fucking moon!

The wolf keened, as though sad.   But then she grabbed his hands and pushed them above his head before kissing him again, this time with a wild force, and she rubbed herself fully against his chest.  For a moment he cursed the fucking t-shirt that was still between them, but then he was fighting back against her hold.  Fucking hell, she was too strong! She could have him now, his body was willing enough even if he thought that it was a bad idea! There was fucking little he could do to stop her!

But then suddenly she sat back, legs still curled either side of him, looking at him with something like uncertainty.  She whined, and looked away. Towards the door.

“No!  Wait!”  But she was leaping from him and racing through the open door.  He was on his feet and after her this time, not even realising that he had grabbed his camera until he felt it banging against him as he ran after her.  She was fast, too fast for him to catch, but he saw her in the distance charging up some boulders near the water’s edge.  She crouched there, staring up at the moon.  He had the camera in his hands and he was taking shot after shot as she stood and stretched up towards the moon with long claws, a lament issuing from her that sounded something like a howl and something like a woman crying. 

He walked towards her and she looked down at him, curiosity on her sharp face. He reached out a hand, as he had done in the library and helped her down.

“Come on, girl.  Let’s get you inside.  It’s cold out here.” But she wasn’t cold, there was a fire in her skin that made him think again of how she rubbed it against him.  He cursed himself, but there was no way he was going to let her do what she seemed to want to do. 

In the trailer she slipped quickly up onto the bed, curling long limbs about herself as she looked up at him.  He shivered under that silver gaze, and he took the chance to shut the door behind them, reaching for the keys to lock it so he could avoid that intensity for a moment. 

“Lie down girl.  Try to get some sleep.”

The wolf girl stretched out on his small bed, lying forward and showing him the curve of her arse and her thighs, her feet kicking over them.  And there was that tail!  His mind was about ready to break from this strangeness but then he found himself lying down next to her.  The bed was small, too small for him even, and he was half off of it, until she draped herself across him and he could shuffle in towards the wall.  She was rubbing herself against him again, but this time it was a gentle touch as she drew herself in closer to him, a small movement of her head as she nestled under his chin.  And that was the strangeness that really took him over the edge of what must have been the remains of his sanity.  That she was… nuzzling him… that she was being affectionate.  How long had it been since a woman had even gone near him? Hadn’t he paid the last? Maybe the one before that as well? Now this wild creature was showing him more damn attention than he’d paid for from human women. 

He remembered Sansa and felt something like guilt.  The librarian didn’t want this.  Didn’t want him.  The cold bitch had near run him out of the library when he’d confronted her. 

But she was right.  She wasn’t the wolf. The wolf girl was elemental and wild.  Sansa Poole was cold and distant, using her ‘sirs’ and her ‘pleases’ and ‘thank you’s’ to push him away while the wolf girl was drawing his hands about her even now.  He found himself stroking her long wild hair, not caring where it was hair and where it was fur.  The wolf girl made sweet little sleepy noises, and then she was gone, her breath deepening into sleep. And soon he followed her.

***

“You-! You-!”

He woke groggily to the explosion of her anger.  She was above him, snarling into his face, a sheet drawn up around her breasts, her hair flying about as she raged.

“You utter bastard!”

She punched him and it was a weak little thing, so weak that he almost laughed.

“You took advantage of me?!”

“Settle down! Settle down!” He grabbed her fist and held it tight and away from him. “I didn’t do anything!” He smiled darkly. “It was all you, love.”

She screamed, and sat away from him, glowering. 

“Peace! Peace. I didn’t do a thing.  You wanted to… of course.  But I was too much of a gentleman.”

“With you?! I wanted to…?!”

“Mate with me?  Aye.”

She looked seriously upset, and he felt the embers of his pride stirring.  “You were pretty fucking keen, actually! It was nearly rape, girl!”

Her eyebrows shot up.  “How dare you-! You disgusting pig!”

“I might be a pig, but you were the beast last night.  Nice tits by the way! I got a much better look this time!”

The slap he expected.  The tears he didn’t.

He rubbed his face.  “Come on girl. I’m only playing with you.”

“Are you sure we didn’t…?  Were you drunk? Maybe you don’t remember?!”

“I weren’t drunk!” There was indignation in his voice, but the question was probably a fair one.  “What do you remember?”

“Nothing.  Not much.  Flashes of memory.  Did the wolf hurt you at all?”  He lifted his t-shirt and she gasped.  Was there a moment before he pulled it down again where she was actually looking at his chest?  A moment after the surprise of seeing the red scratches there?

“You didn’t draw blood, so no harm done.”

“God, I’m so sorry.” Her head was in her hands. “It’s never done that before. Usually I wake up in a wood somewhere in my territory and just try to get home.”

A thought occurred to him then.  “Maybe you’re in heat or something?”

She glared at him through the tears. “What did you say?”

“Sounds like hormones to me.”

The icy glare he got was worth the sting of the slap ten times over.

“Well, how long have you actually been changing?”

She looked down at the floor. “Since I was fourteen.  So about six years.”

“You change into the wolf one night a month, and the wolf girl, what? Two nights a month?” He added that up in his head. “Nah, that doesn’t work.  Your wolf is only a hundred and forty four days old.  If you add the halves together.  If they’re like dogs it’d need to be at least two.”

“Or up to a hundred and fifty six.  There’s sometimes thirteen full moons in a year.”

“Alright, librarian-know-it- all! Well, maybe werewolves have a different maturity rate or some shit.” He saw her flinch at the word.  Not ‘shit’.  ‘Werewolf’.  Before he knew what he was doing he placed his hand on her bare shoulder.

“And it chose… you?!” she said in shock.

He withdrew the hand.  “What? Because I aint pretty I aint good enough to mate with?!” He snarled at her. “Or maybe it’s the limited pool of fucking options here that’s got your bitch in heat for me!”

He caught the hand before it made contact.  “I’m strong.  And she seemed to like how fucking male I am!”

“You’re foul!”

“And you should pay more attention to your fucking wolf, you might be more fun to be around!”

He wasn’t sure who kissed who first.  But it was an angry kiss, all clashing teeth and bitten lips.  The kiss he expected from the wolf girl last night.

“Get off of me!” She pushed him away, and this time he barely moved.  She groaned in annoyance and stood up, pulling the sheet with her.  “Stay away from me!”

“Next month, love, do us both a favour and chain yourself down somewhere!”

“Maybe I will!”

She charged to the door, finding it locked. “Oh, so _now_ you lock the door?!”

He stood up and unlocked it quickly for her, ignoring the painful bulge in his jeans.  He saw her eyes flicking down there however, before she rolled them and he ushered her out like some kind of bloody doorman.  “Have a nice day!”  he said archly.

He could hear her annoyed shriek as she ran out and he slammed the door on her. And he smiled.


	3. Chapter 3

Sandor had started running again.  For the first few days after the bitch had left his trailer he’d rattled about in it, trying to read, failing even to drink.  And then all that barely bottled energy had somehow channelled itself into epically long runs on the fog bound roads.  Then he’d started veering off into the woods, risking twisted ankles to barrel between the moss covered pines. Sometimes his imagination put the wolf at his heels, a flash of reddish brown fur keeping pace with him, darting in and out of sight at the corner of his eye.  And sometimes it was the wolf girl, a brighter red and a glimpse of flesh as she leapt from fallen bough to track somewhere off in the madness of his mind.

Of course it was never the librarian.  He never saw her on his great looping runs.  Heard her well enough.  Heard her angry snapping words as she accused him of shagging her.  Fucking hell, if he’d taken her as he’d been tempted to, she would fucking well remember it the next day!

But the miles eaten up by his battered old running shoes took him further and further away from his anger, and twisted his route closer and closer to town.  He admitted to himself, finally, that she’d had a right to be angry if she thought he’d done that.  Had a right to all that distress and distrust if for three fucking nights a month she was out of her mind and completely out of control.  If it was him… fuck, he’d have put a bullet in his head long back rather than not know what he was up to.  Who he was hurting.

Eventually he realised, as his feet kept a fast pace with the imaginary wolf girl as he ran, even that wasn’t the whole truth.  He’d drunk himself into states like that by his own choice.   And he was still here.  Still being a shit to a very young woman in a very large mess.

That he found himself running down the main street of the town as dusk fell one day barely surprised him.  He’d promised he’d stay away, but he knew he couldn’t.  But it wasn’t the library his feet took him to, but Bronn’s.  At least that would be the lesser of two stupidities.

Bronn looked him over as he came in but said nothing about his sweat drenched running gear, even if other men, and a few raspberry lipped women, stared and laughed between themselves.  Bronn looked busy to be fair.  A curvy brunette was perched on a stool at his bar in tight, ripped jeans and a baggy knitted jumper.  Unlike the few women standing about in their too tight dresses with their tits all pushed up she looked relaxed and happy as she curled herself against the bar like a cat, looking intently at Bronn.  This must be the pilot Bronn was trying to bed.  Well, if he couldn’t bag a woman who looked at him like that, then the man was fucking useless!

Sandor came to the bar, ignoring the woman’s stares as she looked him over, eyes resting for a moment longer on his scars than they should have done.  He shook it off and she looked away, embarrassed.

“Beer.”

Bronn dragged his eyes from the pilot. “Nah.  From the looks of you, you need something else.  Come on out the back.  I got just the fucking thing.”

Sandor growled but followed the blue eyed twat into the back room through a shabby old door, ignoring the curious look the brunette gave the men.  Some spare kegs and crates were stored there.  And a punch bag hung from the ceiling.  Bronn threw him a pair of gloves and stood behind the bag, grasping it.

“Go on.”

Sandor strapped looked at the gloves, glowering.

“It’ll help, trust me.  I find myself back here after every single one of Margaery’s fly-by visits.”

“What? You don’t picture smashing her face in do you?!”

“Of course not! But all that energy’s got to go somewhere, right? And sometimes running don’t cut it. Or the other thing.” He looked at him, pointedly.

 “We’re not about to have a fucking heart to heart about women are we?”

“Fuck no.  Shut up and hit the damn thing!”

Sandor shrugged, took off his thermal top, took off his sweat soaked t-shirt, and then strapped the gloves on.  How long since he’d done this? Two years? Three?

The first impact knocked Bronn back a step, and the smirk disappeared from the man’s face as he reset his feet and prepared himself for the next.  Then the pounding of his fists must have sounded out throughout the whole fucking bar as Sandor laid into the bag.  Bronn was right.  He didn’t picture Sansa’s cold face, or the wolf girl in heat.  He just pushed the energy that was caught up in his muscles out into the bag.  He was so caught up in the rhythm of cross and jab that he almost didn’t notice Dontos jogging into the back room and smirking a knowing smile.

“You’ll never guess who’s decided to visit?”

Whack. Boom.  Whack. Boom.

“I said, you’ll never guess who’s here!” He shouted over the heavy impacts.  Sandor stopped, breathing heavily, sweat dripping into his eyes and through long strands of his hair.

“Who?” Asked Bronn.

“Only the fucking librarian!” Dontos’ glee sickened Sandor, but he followed the round man back out, grabbing a towel to wipe over himself from Bronn’s outstretched hand.

There she was, hovering by the doors to the bar, holding onto a small brown leather handbag hanging from her shoulder by a thin strap as though she was afraid someone was about to rip it from her fingers.  She wore a smart black coat, rich looking, buttoned up at the front all the way up to where a soft blue grey scarf swept around her neck, under the flowing red of her hair.  She looked anxious, small and way too well dressed for this shit-hole bar.

He watched her eyes looking through the patrons, looking for someone.  He gripped his t-shirt in his fist, considering putting it back on.  But something dark in him stopped him, and there was a flash of wicked glee in him as her eyes found him, saw his bare chest, and she blushed bright red.  Yes, girl, the scratches have faded, but you’re still seeing them aren't you? But then suddenly he hoped she hadn’t noticed his tattoos…

He pulled the t-shirt over his head, leaving the fleece for now.  He took a place next to the pilot and nodded at her.

“You need a shower.” She said, a wry smile on her lips.

Bronn shot him a warning look as he went back to serving behind the bar.  And Sandor bit down on the sharp reply his lips had been forming for the brunette.

“Excuse me?” Sansa’s voice was small, and oh so fucking polite.  For a moment he was tempted to pretend that he couldn’t hear over the babble of voices and the noxious whine coming from the jukebox.

“Mr Clegane?” She moved to gently tap his arm, but he turned and looked down at her before she could. “Could I have a moment?”

Margaery’s eyes were laughing at him, but Bronn knew better.  He’d just been on the other end of some of Sandor’s punches and so he better bloody well know better.  Sandor nodded at the girl, and followed her as she moved towards one of the booths.  She said something quietly to the men lounging there, Sandor only heard the odd ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, and then they had it to themselves. So the little bird could sing sweetly to get whatever she wanted, was that it? She’d find that trick fucking difficult to pull on him!

She sat so fucking neatly, handbag on her lap and hands still clasped to it that he spread himself out across his side, stretching arms to take up as much space as possible. She carefully unbuttoned her coat, folding it and putting it to one side.  Underneath she wore a dress, still extremely conservative by the standards of the locals, but pretty enough with flowers all on it. She finished her faffing, and finally looked back at him.  For just a moment a memory of silver eyes overlaid what he was seeing.  But this was just the librarian.

“I wanted to… I wanted to apologise.”

He was taken aback, just as he’d been when he’d tried to stir her up with a request for books on werewolves, and all she’d done was show concern for him.

“I was extremely unfair to you, and I am very sorry. It’s not your fault that…” she lowered her voice. “That the wolf found its way to you.”

Sandor leant forward, giving up his arrogant stretch. 

“S’pose I have some of it to be sorry for too.  I shouldn’t have riled you. After.  In the morning.” He said gruffly.  He didn’t know what to make of her.  One minute she was all frosty anger, the next all sweet words and politeness.  And then there was the wolf girl. 

“I need to know.  I need to know exactly what happened.”

“Shit, girl.” He rubbed a hand over his face, feeling the drying sweat there, the lank hair, the disgusting scars.  Did he have to be a mess almost every time the girl saw him? “If you want to talk about that, I’m going to need a drink.”

She nodded and looked to the bar.  Where Bronn, Margaery and Dontos were all watching them. Fuck them!

Sansa smiled sweetly, and Bronn nodded moving for a bottle of beer for Sandor.  She’d never even been in the bar before and already she had the smirking barman eating out of her hand?!

He was about to say just that, when someone came to the booth.  Jorah Mormont in his hundred dollar sharply pressed shirt, with some kind of strange scarf thing about his neck.  Was that a fucking cravat? In Alaska?!

“Ah, Sansa.  How lovely to see you again.” The bastard started. “I wonder, have you had a chance to consider my proposal?”

Proposal?! Had the balding fucker already targeted the red head for his fourth fucking wife?

“It was very… interesting.  But I’m certain it’s a decision for the town council to make.  And…”

She paused, and he saw the cogs of her manners whirring, and she sweetly said the next part, almost apologetically. “And… Bearpaw is such a small town, Mr Mormont, I doubt that it needs a much larger library with ‘multimedia functionality’.”

Sandor struggled to hide the laugh forming in his throat at the look on Jorah’s face.

“Well… perhaps we can discuss your ideas over dinner sometime?” He said hopefully.

“That would be lovely.” Sansa replied, but there was something false about her words. Jorah mumbled some goodbyes, a quick ‘Sandor’ to him and then went away.

“Are all the men sniffing around you, girl?”

She blushed again and he liked it.  She could seem too fucking together, it was good to see her on the back foot for once. But she quickly recovered and leant forward towards him, putting him off balance with the closeness of her.  Was that bloody well intentional?! Tit for tat was it?!

“Tell me.  What happened? When the wolf came to you last time?”

“Not much to say.  She wanted to mate. I didn’t.” He enjoyed seeing her flinch at his crassness.  But then he remembered the absence of memories, remembered thinking he’d rather be dead than live like that, with black holes in his head, and he softened. “She was keen, pushed me back on the bed…”

“Pushed _you?!_ But you’re so… big.” There was that blush again.  Yes, she’d looked him over when he’d come from the back room.  It’d been a while since he’d worked out seriously, but there was still muscle on the old dog.  _Dog_. The word echoed in his head.  Damn it, had she seen the tattoos too?!

“She’s strong, your wolf girl. Got me on my back and then was… on top.”

Sansa took a deep breath.  “Is that when she scratched you?”

“Aye.  Pinned me down too.” Was the girl breathing so deeply in distress… or something else? She straightened her back and her dress, severe again.

“But she stopped?”

“Aye.  She stopped.  Left me.  Then I got her to come back in to the trailer to sleep.  There aint more to it than that.”

He’d left out how she rubbed herself so wantonly against him.  No, it weren’t wanton.  It was needful. And he couldn’t blame the wolf girl for that, not when no one had ever seemed to need him like that before.  But he weren’t sharing that with the librarian.  That was something he was keeping back for himself. Something he’d thought on in the mornings when he’d taken himself in hand and got himself to that point that she’d been getting him so fucking close to. He also left out the pictures of her on the rocks under the moon he’d been staring at on his laptop.  And the lunar chart he’d downloaded to count the days off on.

Sansa nodded, and then seemed to gather courage to ask.  “Was she… was she horrible to look at?”

He was surprised.  She didn’t know?! But then, how would she? If she blacked out and the wolf girl came, then how would she ever know what the wild one looked like?  God, she had probably watched the same films as everyone else and thought she was some kind of fucking monster! She wasn’t that.  She was… different.  Wild.  Fierce.  But he remembered the way she’d pushed herself into the spaces of him, under his chin, in his arms.  She was affectionate. She was sweet.

“No, she wasn’t horrible.” Something was bothering him.  “I thought we weren’t meant to speak about this? Why are you changing your own fucking rules?”

She frowned, looked away, uncomfortable. He felt a surge of triumph in his blood, but then he remembered the wolf girl on the rocks again. He’d poured over those fucking pictures on his laptop.  Not because she was naked.  Well… that were only part of it, but not all of it.  The loneliness of the wolf girl was in every single fucking pixel.

“It’s the New Moon out there tonight.”

He nodded. The lunar chart had already told him that.  Two more weeks, give or take, before he might see the wolf again.  He’d been marking off the days.

“What happens on the New Moon, then? You turn into a bloody unicorn instead?”

“Yes, actually.”

She said it so plainly and flatly that he near jumped in surprise.  And then those soft pink lips curled into a smile. He swigged from his beer to hide his reaction to it.  Shit.  Shit. Shit.  It really wasn’t just the wolf girl that interested him. 

“The New Moon is the furthest point away from my change.  When I’m the most… human.  The most rational. The most logical.”

“If that’s what you think humans are you’re a fucking fool.”

“Maybe.  But I feel different closer to my change.  Things smell different.  I feel things more… strongly.  And at the moment I’m just a girl.  No wolf at all.”

“And?” But a suspicion was forming.  And with it, his anger. Fuck her. Fuck her!

“I wanted to see how I reacted around you, when the wolf wasn’t there.  Not even one little bit.”

“So this was a bloody experiment?!”

“‘This’?”

He sneered.  She was right.  She was rational, logical.  Cold.

“Talking to me.  Checking out the wolf’s mate?”

“You are _not_ her mate.” Sansa said imperiously.

“Oh, will it be Mormont? Three wives down, but he’s still got a fair bit of cash in the bank.  Or maybe Dontos? Plenty of fat there to keep him alive during the winter.  Or Bronn? He’s another ex-military-” He cut himself off before he said too much. 

“I don’t want a mate!” She hissed at him.

“I don’t think your wolf agrees!” He stood up. “And I thought you wanted to apologise?!”

She reached for him, and his eyes caught sight of her nails.  Not the wolf’s claws.  Not even the perfect manicure he’d expected from little miss proper.  Ragged, bitten nails, the harassed nails of someone with a lot of anxiety under their skin.  He sat back down, drank the rest of his beer.

“I’m sorry.  I did want to apologise.” She looked meek again, the cold, rational bitch buried again for a moment.  “You don’t know what it’s like!  To be constantly afraid of losing control! To be afraid of hurting people, all the time! Not knowing if it’s you that’s reacting, or the beast!  I had to know if I was thinking like this because of the wolf or…”  She stopped herself, biting down on her lip.

“Thinking what…?”

“I’m just… sorry.  Sorry that she bothered you.”

“It weren’t a bother.” He said softly, trying to catch her eyes with his.  “Look at me, girl.”

She met his eyes.  God, that blue was stunning.

“It weren’t a bother.”

She nodded. “I should go.”

“You should stay and let all those men sniffing about buy you drinks.  It’d make Bronn’s bloody night if his till was full.”

“I don’t drink.  And I think he’s happy enough.” He followed her eyes to where Bronn was still chatting with the pilot.

“Yeah, but he hasn’t bedded that one yet.  Not fer lack of trying.”

Sansa frowned. “But she’s near shouting at him with her body language.”

“Don’t ask me.  I know even less about women than I do werewolves.”

She turned her head back to him and flashed him a shy smile.  He felt parts of himself responding.  Fucking hell!

“Have you got a car?” He asked gruffly.

“Um, yes, I sort of inherited Ms Mordane’s old beetle. Oh, you ran here?!”

“Please.” The word felt weird in his mouth. “Please, could I have a lift?”

“Of course you may.” She smiled again. “It would be a pleasure.”

“Lies, girl. Lies.”

“Maybe.  But I can’t have you walking the roads this night.  Not when a dreadful unicorn’s going to be abroad!” 

Who was this girl?! He thought about her as he gathered his fleece and followed her out to the street.  She was carefully doing up the bright gold buttons of her dark coat, her delicate boots gracefully stepping over the slippery wetness of the pavement.  She was all cold fire one moment and then false courtesies and rational cruelty.  But she could also be darkly funny.  Warm even.   And she’d smiled at him more in the past half hour than any woman had done.  Ever.

He followed her, a step or so behind, watching the swish of that long hair over the back of her coat.  And he remembered the wolf girl’s tail.

“You have a tail.”

She stopped, swirling round to look at him in shock. “What did you say?!”

“The wolf girl.  Did you know? She has a tail.”

Sansa just stood there staring at him in the darkness. “I didn’t know.”

She turned away, her face a sudden mystery.  Finally they reached a battered old VW beetle parked by the closed library.

“Where are you staying, girl?”  He struggled to fit himself inside after she unlocked the door.

“I have a room in a guest house.  It’s not much.  But I don’t know how long I’ll be staying here so it’ll do.”

“So you’re taking me out of your way.”

“Oh, it’s no bother.” She started the car. Sansa drove much like he imagined the original owner of the beetle had done. Slow and steady, sticking strictly to the speed limit, raising and dipping her headlights on turns even when there was no one on the wooded roads out of town.  Finally she pulled up in the layby he directed her to.  The beetle would never make it down to his trailer by the river, not like his truck could.

He grimaced as he pulled himself free from the clutches of the small orange and rust car. He gave her a curious look as she bobbed back in her seat to grab something from the back before she got out and walked around to him.

It was a small, basic backpack.

“I could just find a place to store it.  Somewhere out amongst the trees.”  He looked down at her, curious and confused.  She wasn’t making much sense.  She sighed, at herself he thought, and tried again.

“It’s just a few essentials.  Clothes, money, that sort of thing.  I have a few scattered about north of the town, where she usually hunts.  But if the wolf comes back this way again…”

“You moving in, girl?” He smiled darkly at her, but there was a short swift pain in him that he didn’t really understand, until the image of her waking in a wood somewhere, trying to work out where she was _this_ time, came to his mind. Just a lost girl in the woods. “Nah.  I’ll take it.  In case.”

“Maybe it won’t happen again.  Maybe the wolf just got confused. Well… good night, Mr Clegane.”

“Night, girl.” He turned and walked down the bank through the trees, towards the silver light glinting off of the river.  And all the while as he walked through the dark he thought about those last words.  Maybe it wouldn’t happen again.  Maybe she _was_ just confused.  But the memory of the wolf girl nuzzling against him erased Sansa’s words, the memory of her _needing_ him.

There were about two weeks until the next full moon.


	4. Chapter 4

The nights had been bad.  Worse than fucking ‘bad’. All the old terrors and sweats that the booze had always kept away before had come washing back in with a tide of memories.  Passing out on the old cabin bed with beer and whiskey instead of blood in his veins just weren’t cutting it any more.  He was seeing the boy again, seeing him just ahead of him all the time as he ran in the horror films of his mind.

The days were getting better though.  Running to Bronn’s and back every day should have reminded him of his night time marathons, but instead the running in the real world pushed the poisons from his blood with every pounding heartbeat. Beating his fists into the punch bag at Bronn’s was therapy as well, even if he found himself keeping an eye on the door there for her half the bloody time.

But he didn’t see her at all during the two weeks between the New Moon and the Full. Well, he caught sight of her in the library a few times.  More than a few, as he made sure his path to Bronn’s took him past the old shop front and the large window of it. Often she’d be standing at the counter, reading something intently, her glorious hair drifting down as she concentrated.  Every day he saw her she wore another smart but kind of old fashioned outfit.  For some kind of vagabond werewolf she was curiously well put together, rich looking.  But that was a part of her, miss prim and proper, Miss Sansa ‘Poole’, or whatever her real surname was.  He couldn’t imagine her in the carefree ripped jeans and baggy jumper of Bronn’s pilot.

But he didn’t have to imagine her _out_ of them.  He had the pictures of her on his laptop, greeting him every time he turned it on because he still went back and forth about whether to save them there from the memory card he’d plugged in from his camera. Miss Sansa Poole, so proper and polite.  And cruel.  And the wolf girl, naked and wild.  And gentle.

And the days were getting better because he was checking them off on the lunar chart on his laptop.  The days were getting fucking better because he was certain he was going to see her again.

Finally it was the night before the Full Moon.  He set himself up with beer and a campfire outside the trailer and waited as dusk turned to dark and the fat silver moon rose.  He charred some sausages for a while, hunkering down in his padded coat as a chill night’s wind blew, sneering at the small fire.  But hunger eventually made him eat most of them as the hours of his wait stretched on.  Fuck.  Was she not coming? Had the librarian been right and the wolf had just been confused the last two times?

So he near jumped out of his skin when he suddenly felt her long elegant hands drift over his chest as she leant behind him, tilting her head to smell his hair. Fucking hell she moved quietly! No one had ever snuck up on him before! He prided himself on shit like that, and his skills in that field should not have been all that dulled by fucking time!

“Girl.” He said in greeting, surprising himself with the relief in his tone.  The librarian had been wrong about the wolf.  Twice could have been a mistake.  Three fucking times was a pattern.

He twisted about to look up at those curious silver eyes behind him. And the wolf girl kissed him.

Again, it was gentle, soft, but with the strange nip of her sharper teeth.  He fought the urge to grab her and to drag her across his lap.  Instead he pulled away, standing up quickly to face her.

Fucking hell!  It was one thing staring at hastily taken photos of her and another to be faced with her in the flesh again.  And what fucking perfect flesh it was.  She was pale in the moonlight, and the curve of her hips and her breasts stood out in even the slight red light of the fire and the silver of the moon.  He could see all of her, and it was fucking difficult not to stare at the lines of her, especially as they drew the eye down to the joint of her, between her smooth thighs where dark red hairs curled.

But then she was running! The blur of movement from standing statue still under his gaze to sprinting towards the tree line was almost too fast for him to make out.  He frowned, concerned that he’d scared her with his obvious attentions, but then he saw her stop by the trees, looking back.  Waiting.

“Someone wants to run, do they?” The words echoed oddly in the still of the night, and he realised quite how fucking surreal this all was.  But not before his body had responded, and he ran towards her, following her up under the trees.

He was glad then of his ‘training’, running back and forth between Bronn’s.  God damn it, she was fast! Faster than he’d imagined when he’d pretended that she was running with him during the day.  There was no way he could have possibly kept her in sight if she wasn’t stopping occasionally to look back to him.  He stumbled once in the dark, cursing as he nearly went down, and she was back with him in a heartbeat, waiting nearby until he was back on his feet again, before racing off like a wild spirit from fucking Greek mythology through the woods again.

He did lose sight of her then.  Coming to a clearing near filled with fallen pine boughs he stopped as he could not see the flash of red and flesh through the trees any more.  He panted as he turned this way and that trying to peer into the thick blackness, strands of his dark hair sticking themselves to his sweating brow.  The full moon was visible through the black trees above him, but he suddenly realised how very deep and very dark the woods could be.  How very still it was when he wasn’t running.  How very quiet. 

And then suddenly something leapt out at him, tumbling with him into the springy covering of pine on the ground.  He yelled out, but his mouth was covered by hers, and in the tangle of limbs he felt her pushing at his coat, getting her hot hands up and under the sweater beneath, clutching at muscles there.  Somehow his hands found their way to her waist, and then to her chest, pawing at her, rubbing her hardened nipples as she ground her thigh and then her crotch against his groin.  He groaned into her mouth, the pressure peaking, building more and more, growing from the first spark of it at his sight of her by the river.  And then suddenly, in the deep rolling kiss, her teeth nipped his lip and he spent himself in his jeans like some fucking teenage boy!

“Bloody hell!” he gasped when his senses returned.  It’d been too fucking long since he’d had a woman.  Even longer since he had one writhing about on him with that kind of urgency and need!  She was still lying over him, her breasts still pressed against his palms as he regained his breath after the run and the rush of it all.  She shivered, silver eyes closing as he restarted his caresses, moving her hands to his shoulders to rear back and to display her neck again as he ran coarse fingertips over her soft skin.  Surrendering?

He closed his eyes and removed his hands. “I’m sorry girl.  As much as I’d like to return the favour…” 

There was that low keening sound again, but then the nuzzling of her at his neck, her eyelashes and then her nose drifting up over his scars.  The wolf girl lay small kisses on him there and he found himself trembling.  Fuck the librarian, fuck her and her fucking coldness!

“Come on now, girl.  Let’s get back to the trailer where it’s a wee bit warmer.” She darted from him, long limbs graceful as a dancer’s as she flitted between the trees nearby.  He stood and followed her much slower pace as she wended down towards the river.

At the trailer he collected the few things he’d left out by the campfire.  He saw her circling about it, still cautious like an animal whereas he moved purposefully about the place.  But when he opened the door she followed him into the dark interior, curling up on the bed straight away.

“Not yet, girl.  Going to jump in the shower first.  You… I don’t know.  You… _sit_.”

She tilted her head, but stayed put.  In fact it was a little unnerving how still she could be sometimes.  Even more so when he realised she was watching him undress.  She growled a little as he moved into the tiny shower ‘space’, calling it a room was a bit much, with his jeans still on, bending and struggling to remove them inside of it and out of her view.  A quick shower and then he dragged a towel around his waist before returning to her. 

He was surprised to find her standing in the middle of the trailer, twisting this way and that, looking down.

“What the hell?!”

And then he realised what she was doing.  It wasn’t quite as comical as a dog chasing its tail - _dog, dog,_ the word echoed in his head for a moment – but she was trying very hard to take a good look at hers!

 _I didn’t know. I didn’t know_ , she had said when he’d told her she had a tail.  Fuck.  The wolf wasn’t just something that happened to her! It wasn’t just her body that was off running wild while her mind slept.  Part of her was here, now, in his trailer.  But how much of her had been with the wolf when it had been kissing him, or lying against him in the sweet smelling pine needles?

“Sansa?”

The wolf girl looked up at him, silver eyes flashing in the near dark.  No, there was nothing of the stern, proper girl there now.  Not in the looks she was giving his body.  Not in the frown that appeared on her face as she realised he was wearing the towel.

“Calm yourself girl.  I’ll dress for bed.  Perhaps you should too.  The librarian might not fucking castrate me if she finds herself in an old t-shirt of mine in the morning.” He reached into a built in wardrobe and flung her one as he looked about for a shirt and trackies for himself.  But then the ripping sound made him look up.  The wolf girl was tearing the shirt apart with those fucking claw like nails of hers!

“Fucking hell! I _liked_ that one!” Strands of material were floating to the floor. “Fine! I’ll be dressed at least.” He flung on a t-shirt.  But just as he pulled it down over his head and could see her again, he found her right in front of him, moving to push the t-shirt up again, running her hands over his chest.

“Girl.” He growled in warning. And she growled back, moving closer to lay her body against his, possessively.  Fuck, his cock was reacting to her again! She pushed the t-shirt off, and he couldn’t stop her.  “Okay! But I’m wearing fucking bottoms, and that’s final!”

He turned a little and quickly pulled them on, ditching the towel in one swift movement.  He turned back to find her on the bed again, curled up by the wall to leave him space.  The long fucking night that lay ahead of him flashed in his mind.  A long night of having her naked body pressed against his in the small space of the bed.  A long night of burning to just grab her and to pull her onto his hardness in one quick move that had her gasping.  A long night of her sweet little noises and sleepy movements against him.  But looking at her, waiting for him, her chest moving as she breathed him in, he couldn’t even think of wanting to be anywhere else.  Her silver eyes followed him as he lay down, and he did grab her then, but only to pull her onto his chest, where she lay her head happily, long nails running through his chest hair as she lazily settled on him.

“Got even more fur than a werewolf, don’t I girl?” He laughed, a deep sound that moved his chest and disturbed her rest for a moment.  She popped her head back up to look into his eyes, so close to him that it was the simplest movement to kiss her again, to slip his tongue into her willing mouth and to feel those god damn teeth again.  She moaned, a woman’s moan, and it was all he could do not to roll her over with him and to mount her as she seemed to want.  But he held back, cursing himself all the while. “Sleep now, come on girl.  Sleep.”

***

His eyes fluttered open and part of him was already bracing himself for the first screech or slap.  But the trailer was silent, and also still dark.  He’d woken before the sunrise for once.  He was more used to bleary, swollen eyed and thick tongued, late mornings after the bottle.  But this morning, even if it was fucking early still, he felt… rested.  And no nightmares either. 

He looked down at the warm, naked woman in his arms and was surprised to see the long pointed ears, and the masses and masses of wild red hair.  She hadn’t changed yet!

He barely breathed for fear of waking her.  But he stopped entirely as it started.  Silver light bloomed, outlining her, the slope of her shoulders, the long lines of her arms about him, even the strands of her hair were picked out in the bright glow.  And then the lines moved, the ears shortened and disappeared back into her hair which lost a lot of its mass.  Her long fingers remained long and feminine but the nails became the ragged nails of the librarian again, shortening to the quick.  She stirred and he quickly closed his eyes, pretending to still be asleep.

She stretched out her body and it was almost like the wolf girl was still with him.  But then he could feel those stern blue eyes glaring at his through his eyelids.

“Good morning, Mr Clegane.” There was a certain amount of bitterness there in her voice.  It wasn’t the first time a woman had woken up, naked, with him, and felt disappointment.  But it was the first time that he thought he had a good counter for it.  He shifted under her and took a handful of her naked arse in his palm.

“Try calling me that again with my hand on yer arse!”

“Mr-!” She made an infuriated sound and he opened his eyes to look into hers. And then he looked down to where the press of her breasts on his chest gave her a full and interesting cleavage.

“Sandor!” She protested. “Please!”

“Just enjoying the fucking view.”

“You don’t think you’ve seen enough?!”

“Not yet, girl.”

“Wait!  Where’s your top? And… you’re not wearing jeans.”

“The wolf preferred me with my top off. I insisted on the bottoms.  You can thank me later.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What _exactly_ happened last night?!”

His mind flashed back to the clearing and his ‘accident’. Like fuck he was going to tell her about that!

“Usual.  She wanted me.  I was ever the fucking gentleman.”

Sansa sighed and lowered her eyes.

“Have you ever thought about maybe… I don’t know…  _Dating?_ ”  He backpedalled as he saw her eyebrows shoot up. “Not me! But maybe if the woman was getting some then the wolf wouldn’t…” He’d said it mostly to aggravate her, she brought out the worst in his dark humours, but the thought of her actually at dinner with Mormont, or some other mug, and then going back to his…. A growl grew in his throat but he stopped it before it got out of him.

“I don’t date.”

“Don’t date. Don’t drink. How exactly do you spend your free time Sansa?”

“Running naked through the woods.  And you?”

He laughed darkly. “Running after you.  Last night at least.”

“Did you catch her?” Curiosity, or something else?  He felt her shift slightly as she lay on him.  Fucking hell!  She was near lying right on it!  She was going to feel the whole painfully solid length of him through the thin cloth soon enough if she bloody well kept that up!

“Not exactly.”

“Tell me.” Her voice was oddly breathy.  And she was close enough to his face for the same easy kiss that he’d given the wolf girl last night. But he didn't do it.

“She stalked me.  Jumped out at me.  Hell, if she’d wanted to, she could have-”

“Killed you.” There was a sudden sadness there.  And he watched those blue eyes blink once or twice too often and look away.

“Hey.  Hey, don’t do that!  She doesn’t want to hurt me or she’d have done it by now!” Suddenly a thought occurred.  “Wait.  What if she bit me? Does that mean I’d be like her…?”

Sansa looked back at him, but her blue eyes avoided looking directly at his grey.  “I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so?! Ain’t that a fucking important thing to know?!”

“I think it’s just a… a… family thing.  But the only person she’s ever bitten…” She stopped, sitting up and pulling the small pack back of hers, lying on the floor nearby, to her as she covered her breasts with her other arm. He was almost distracted by the swell of them, but his wits shouted at him and he sat up in the bed.

“What happened to them?!”

“He’s dead, Mr Clegane.  She killed him.”  She pulled clothes out and quickly dressed; underwear, jeans and a plain grey cashmere sweater, walking boots.  It was the most casual he’d ever seen her, and she was the most frightening she’d ever been.  “The wolf killed him.”

She looked back at him, and he saw her eyes flicker down to the tattoo on his chest above his heart.  Three dogs running, under crossed rifles, his father’s fucking regimental shield. 

And then she was walking out the trailer door, leaving it open and letting in the cold.


	5. Chapter 5

One glass. Two glasses. Three.  Fuck it, swig from the bottle till its near empty.  Burning throat but fuck that too, keep on drinking.  Turn up the volume on the laptop speakers.  Again.  Drown out the wolf’s howling with the screams of some big titted girl being chased by a man in a furry suit with prosthetics on his head and plastic teeth in his mouth.  It’s fucking werewolf films or waiting in silence for some porn to download through the fucking slow connection the dish makes.  As if porn will make him think about her any less than the ridiculous horror film he’s put on.  Werewolves or sex, sex or werewolves?  Sex with werewolves…

He staggers up from the bed and slams his palms into the door frame of the locked door to the trailer, hanging his head as the wolf cries outside.

“Please. Please shut the fuck up. Please!” He’s never been so bloody polite in his life.  He’s never begged.  But he can’t take her crying any more. 

But he can’t let her in either.  Not after what Sansa had told him about the wolf. 

 _As if there ain’t blood on your hands too!_ That deeper fucking voice in his head again.

He knows the bastard’s right.  Just as he knows deep down that the whole story has to explain it all.  That the sweet creature who visits him, who makes him feel needed and… god damn it! That creature can’t just be a killer!  Somewhere in all the words Sansa isn’t saying there’s a reason why she killed someone.  Maybe some fucking good reason!

But then he started drinking with the setting sun.  Started seeing monsters in the long shadows under the trees outside.  Started locking and unlocking the door, unable to decide whether to let the big bad wolf in or not.  And when she finally came, scratching at the door again with her paws, it was when it was locked.  And he couldn’t get himself to pick up the keys and let her in.

“Please. Please stop howling!”

She does then, and the silence is filled by the sound of a woman dying on his laptop.  He hopes, prays almost, that she is now loping off into the woods.  Maybe she’ll hunt and sleep and in the morning he can go over to the library and grab the ice cold bitch and force her to tell him what actually happened.  Force her to let him see the wolf girl again as some kind of innocent wild spirit of the woods.  Force her to help him get rid of the image he had of her in his mind now; covered in someone’s blood, crouching naked over the body and licking the red from her hands like she’s on some kind of shit film poster.  _Coming soon to a cinema near you! The Wolf Girl! And you thought **your** girlfriend was a bitch once a month!_

He just about stops himself from beating his fists against the doorframe, and staggers back to the bed.  Passing out is a blissful release from the wolf’s howls.  She’s stopped outside.  But in his head she’s still crying out for him.

***

Sandor gets up from the bed and he’s at the door before he even really knows he’s awake again. He needs to find her.  All he’s dreamt about is looking for her.  In the woods.  In the streets of Bearpaw’s small centre.  On the roads.  Running. Running and searching.  

So he’s surprised when he finds her so quickly.  Not the wolf, or the wolf girl.  But the librarian, curled up naked where the wolf had slept, just at the bottom of the tiny steps to the trailer that he’s never used.  The wolf had gone to sleep at his door, alone. And his heart is fucking breaking.

He reaches back inside and grabs his padded jacket, sweeping it over her as he feels the prickle of tears in his fucking eyes.  Daft sod. But when she stretches and looks up at him, all that severity and properness gone and a mess of un-brushed red hair and drowsy blue eyes left in their place, he picks her up and quickly carries her inside.

“What are you doing?! Mr Clegane!”

“You must be fucking freezing!” He places her on the bed, turning a bit as she shrugs her arms into his massive jacket, swamping herself in it, covering herself up, apart from those long fucking legs.  He looks away even from them.

“I don’t feel the cold like that.”

He bumbles about sorting out the coffee maker, scraping grounds off of the last filter paper, searching for clean mugs.

“Feel my hands Mr Clegane, I’m not cold.”

She stretches a delicate hand towards him and he pauses before taking it in his massive paw.  Soft.  But also very warm.

“We wouldn’t be very fit for purpose, in evolutionary terms, if we froze to death every time we woke up naked in the woods, now would we?”

He reluctantly lets go of her, before bringing her the coffee and she takes the mug in both hands. And she looks so fucking young, even when she spouts all that smug pseudo-academic bullshit.

“But thank you for the coffee.”  She sips it slightly as she watches him over the rim of the mug. “It’s very welcome.”

“I should have let her in!”

“It’s probably for the best that you didn’t.  Maybe, with a bit of strict training, in time she’ll learn to go elsewhere.”

He sits himself in the small chair by the laptop and turns it to face her.  As he does, fucking idiot that he is, he knocks over the DVDs and they spill onto the floor, right by where her feet are delicately crossed over each other. She reaches for one, notes the title and her lips purse, but then she puts it to one side without comment.

“Are you angry?” He asks, giving up on trying to gauge her reaction from those cold blue eyes.

“Do you really think that there is a… a… _werewolf_ film I haven’t seen, Mr Clegane? I can’t say much for your taste, but you might have been limited by the selection at the rental shop.” She speaks so fucking properly, its everything he can do not to snap at her and demand that she show some fucking emotion.  “I really would not bother with the sequel to that one, though. The budget was vastly reduced-”

“Who was he?”

She pauses, knowing exactly who he means.

“What does the tattoo mean, Mr Clegane?”

He growls.  “None of your fucking business!”  She’s fucking smart this one!  She’s forced him to shut down so that she can shut down on her story.

“Ditto.”  But there’s a smile on her lips.  An almost wolfish smile.  Oh, this one likes winning.  But she hasn’t won yet.

"My father’s regimental shield.” He nods to her. Your turn.

“My first boyfriend. My only boyfriend.” But then she _is_ shutting down, all trace of that smile gone.

“Sansa.” he moves to sit by her and she holds up a hand to stop him.

“I am not going to tell you the whole wretched story Mr Clegane.  I barely know you.  Whatever _relationship_ you think you might have with my wolf - whatever it is that she wants to do with you - I am not my wolf.  I am not the one who visits you.  I am just the one who turns up in the morning desperately wanting to be somewhere else.”

He frowned.  But the wolf girl remembered his comment about her tail.

“But.” He says meekly, trying out a theory. “I thought that, since we made love the night before last, that we might be able to... do it again?”

Sansa’s eyes narrow.  “No.  No we didn’t!”

“Are you sure about that?”

He sees her concentrating, searching her ragged memories.  It’s a face he’s pulled many times as he’s tried to put his night back together in the morning after. 

“Running… we were running.  In the woods.”

“I told you that.  But in the clearing.  Among the pine needles.  God, they smelt good.  Not as good as you did when you rode me though.”

There it is! The flash of memory brings a red flash to her face. “She might have been on top of you, but we didn’t-” and then she remembers the rest. And a smile twists those perfect lips.  “She made you, she made you… _you know!”_

His turn to be embarrassed, maybe, but he plays it off.  Fuck her.  “It was my first lapdance from a werewolf, what can I say?”

She’s up and on her feet before he can react, but he catches her wrist in his hand before she makes contact.  And then he’s got her squirming in his lap, the coat falling open again as she growls at him.  There are even curse words peppering her rage, the very proper Miss Sansa Poole is actually cursing!

He gets two strong arms around her and she can’t move any more.  He growls into her ear, trying to ignore the light sweet scent of her hair as he does.

“And if you ever want to come too, I am happy to return the favour.”

He releases her and she darts back to the bed, pulling the padded jacket tight about her, glaring at him.  But her skin is flushed still, her breath is fast.  He realises what he’s said then.  Not the wolf girl, her.  If she ever wants it, he’d do it for her.   And it’s true.

“You- you-!”

“Bastard? Wanker? Cunt? Yeah, sure.  But this utter shit is going to drive you back to your guest house now so you don’t have to do the walk of shame back to town in his coat.”

She pauses, taking a breath.  “Thank you.  That would be very kind of you, Mr Clegane.”

He gathers his wallet, keys.  “Are you ever going to stop fucking calling me that?!”

“Not as long as it annoys you, no.”

Her honesty stops him for a moment, and then he finds himself laughing. “Come on then.”

She follows him out to the flatbed truck, stepping lightly across the stones in her bare feet.  He’d offer to carry her again, but that’d go down like a lead fucking balloon.  But then they’re inside and on the road, and he’s struggling not to stare at those long naked legs again as they emerge from the bottom of his jacket.

He expects her to say some curt thank you and goodbye as he pulls up outside the large house on the outskirts of town.  It’s like some kind of fucking gingerbread house with white picket fences, pretty flowers in the garden, and a red brick path, and it couldn’t be more perfect for the big bad wolf to be staying in if she tried.  But there’s no goodbye as she darts out of the truck and up the long red path.  He thinks she’s being rude for a moment, but then she’s paused by the door, and he can see the wolf girl standing there in her place instead, waiting by the tree line for him to run after her.  So he gets out of the truck, following.

The inside is a confectionary of crocheted doilies on highly polished antique furniture, dried flowers in vases, and a grandfather clock in a swiss style. She near skips up a wooden staircase and he follows her up to a door on the landing with a metal no.2 screwed into it. She reaches into a large vase sitting on the floor, the coat skimming up her legs as she bends, and pulls out a key on a chain.  Sandor pulls his eyes from her thighs and follows her in.

“I’m sorry about the mess.” 

What fucking mess?! There’s a scarf on the bed, and what might have been a bra that is whisked away before Sandor can really appreciate its creamy silk.  But the rest of the room, frilly lace and floral wallpaper aside, is as spick and span as some of the barrack rooms he’s shared. A row of library books on a desk, a large empty rucksack, and another canvas bundle that might be a stowed tent, are the only signs of Sansa in the room, which he assumes was decorated by the owner of the house who has still not left the early nineteen hundreds yet.

“I didn’t want to say goodbye in the truck in case anyone saw us.”

“No, you’re right, it’s so much better that they saw me follow you into the house, with you wearing my coat.” And nothing beneath it, his mind whispered.  Which was fucking daft, because there was barely an inch of her he hadn’t seen before already.  So why is he so fucking interested in catching a glimpse?

She grimaces a little. “I suppose I didn’t really think that through.  But… thank you.”

She holds out a hand for him to shake and he laughs, avoiding it and taking a seat on her pink flowery bed.  Oh, he knows he should go.  But the look on her face as he sits is fucking precious.

“But I need to shower, to get dressed-!” her cold anger is back.

“Oh, so it’s okay for the wolf to look at the man, but the dog can’t look at the lady?!”

She’s confused. Of course she fucking is.  He isn’t the dog to her.  He isn’t the Hound.  Not here.

“Why did you call yourself a dog?”

He tries to cover it. “You called me a pig before.  Dog or pig? Which do you prefer for the pervert who is waiting for you to shower, sitting on your bed, in your fucking wedding cake of a room?”

He sees her making fists at her side.  Then she angrily grabs a white towelling robe from off a hook on a door and walks through it to what must be the bathroom, slamming it hard behind her.  He hears the hiss of a shower and tries very fucking hard not to think about the librarian soaping herself all over just on the other side of that white painted door.  Tries not to think about how easy it would be to get up and take the few steps to it, open it, and to find her there in the steam and heat.

But then its turned off, and she comes back in, wearing the robe and patting at the wet length of her hair with a towel.   She sits smartly on a padded stool in front of a dressing table, but facing him as she runs her fingers through her hair, getting out the knots.  And for a moment the robe gapes enough at the front that he can see her collarbone, a smattering of freckles, and the start of the inner curve of one breast.  He can’t help but stare, and he’s only an inch away from being the dog, drooling at the sight of her.

There’s a war going on here, somewhere in the air between them there’s a battle being fought between her desire to annoy him, his desire to see her embarrassed, and some other distracting fucking desires that he’s not sure that she’s sharing with him at this moment.  And he’s surprised when she’s the first to look away, hands leaving her hair to rest in her lap.

“Will you be watching me dress as well, Mr Clegane?”

She wins.  Because instead of finding a way to annoy him, she’s found a way to make him feel like a complete and utter shit.  And the black mood that sweeps over him pushes him to his feet and moves him towards the door.

“Please.  Wait.”  He doesn’t expect the words, expected instead to be leaving in silence and getting into his truck to head back to the bottle and maybe some of the porn he thought about last night. Or maybe he’d let the wolf girl in tonight.  Or maybe he’d drink himself into the darkness instead.

“Can you… can you sit?”

He obeys, painfully aware of how the bed creaks under his weight and how his large boots have left dark marks going back and forth on the thick cream carpet in a path between it and the door.

“What are you doing today?”

Of all the things she might have said, he expected that least of all.  He tries to make his response light, but he ain’t sure he doesn’t just sound bitter. “Got some important business meetings later.  Date with a supermodel in the evening.  That sort of thing.”

She smiles shyly and he finds himself flustered. “I was going to read a bit, drink a bit.  Nothing fucking important.”

“Mr Mormont said yesterday at lunch that you came here to photograph bears.”

At least it wasn’t ‘Jorah’ for that wanker. But ‘lunch’?! Fuck him!

“But you’re parked up in the wrong place. I could show you where they are.  It’s a short drive north and then a quick hike from here-”

“Don’t you need to open the library?”

“It’s Sunday, Mr Clegane.”  He’d been paying so much bloody attention to the moon phases, that he’d lost track of the days.  Although losing days wasn’t entirely a new thing for him.

“You should have said something about it before we left the trailer.  All my fucking camera gear’s there!” He growls out the words, and he hates himself for it when all that shy warmth vanishes from her face.

“I could just mark up the area on a map and you could go another day-”

“No! I’m sorry, girl. It’s nothing to make a loop and pick up some bits. You sure they went north though?”

“I’ve seen them.  They moved into my hunting territory after I arrived.”

“ _Into_ your territory?! Why would they share space with another large predator?”

She flinches a little at the word ‘predator’ and he regrets it straight away.  But then she’s politely chirping again.  “Yes, I would have thought so too.  It’s strange, but lots of larger animals seem to want to share territory with the wolf. There’s lynxes, a wolf pack…”

She pauses as though something has upset her.  Wolves.  She’d said that it was a family thing, hadn’t she? That she wasn’t sure if she would change him if she bit him? Where was her fucking family, her pack?

“Are there others, like you?”

“I should get dressed.” She stands and moves to a wardrobe, keeping her back to him as she searches and bringing out jeans, tops, walking boots.

“What happened, Sansa? Where’s _your_ pack.”

She turns back and for a second he sees the sad silver eyes of the wolf girl and he’s not sure if he’s actually imagined it or not.  But then it’s just her, just the librarian.  Sansa.

“Please, don’t ask me that. Please Sandor.”

The use of his name gets him right in the fucking chest, and he’s staring up at those eyes and he sees the tears in them.  But he lets her be, asks her nothing else.  He even looks away as she dresses, until a light hand touches his shoulder to tell him that she’s done.  Because even if she let him, the dog can’t look at the lady at the moment.


	6. Chapter 6

Sandor is impressed, and it’s been a fucking long time since that has happened.  And oddly enough it’s not just by her arse that is bobbing and weaving in front of him in her jeans as she clambers quickly up the slippery bank. Although, to be fair, there’s something about it that’s also catching his eye.  But he’s mostly impressed that the starchy damn librarian can chuck on a faded pair of old jeans, pull on some well worn-in walking boots, twist her hair back into a long braid, and then hike competently through the woods, keeping a good pace with a two man tent slung across her back.  Of course, chances are she’s spent more time in the woods than he fucking has, and he suddenly has an image in his mind of her alone, naked in the dawn’s light, slowly finding her way home by the moss on the trees or however the hell it’s bloody done.  And that strange sadness finds him again, only to be dashed away the next time those cold eyes find him.

Going up the bank he slips more than she does, fingers grabbing at roots, curse words exploding from his mouth as his pack drags him backwards.  She looks back, just as the wolf girl did when he tripped in the night wood.  But she doesn’t come back for him as she did, instead she just watches him, perhaps calculating the extreme lowness of her own level of impressed.  But maybe she knows better than to try to help him.  She seems to know so much better all the fucking time!

Maybe she does indeed know better than he does.  What the hell was he thinking of, gathering up a six pack, a brace of burgers and loaf of bread along with his camera gear? He’d only fucking meant to grab his camera and a tripod while she waited up in the truck on the road.  Actually, he’d even nearly forgotten to eject the memory card from his laptop and place it back in the camera.  But the beer had been his first priority as he had charged about the inside of the trailer with a strange energy.  And the food a close second. Was he thinking, that they’d have some kind of ‘romantic’ dusk time dinner of burgers and ripped apart bread, washed down with a cheap beer, before the wolf came for her? Surely that was more fucking likely with the wolf girl than the librarian?

It was probably the tent.  It was playing on his mind.  He’d been confused when she’d grabbed it on their way out from the frilly tart’s boudoir she was living in. She’d blushed, most like getting the drift of his confusion, and had insisted that she thought she might stay up in her hunting grounds after she showed him where the bears were. Staying there for her change after he was long gone.

Following her now, he wondered if that would make any bloody difference. He wondered whether the wolf girl would just head south again to him and his trailer. Or whether he would just stay until she found him. He remembered finding the librarian at the bottom of the steps to his trailer, and he knew then that he would wait for her.  Even if Sansa made him go, he’d find a way to circle back round to the wolf girl. 

“Nearly there!” Said Sansa, and he was brought back to the present.  Back to that view of her arse. 

He just growled, keeping his breath for the climb.  Fuck her, she wasn’t even breathing heavily.  He’d thought he was fitter with the running to and from Bronn’s and the punch bag work outs.  But then, he should really have factored in the beers there and once he was back.  And the late whiskey nights, and the dehydrated fucking mornings. And the fact that he was following a fucking werewolf…

They crested the bank and looked down on the silver ribbon of the river.  It flowed past them then turned south down to where the town was, and then on to the trailer.  And he saw the bear almost immediately, even at this distance it was immense.  Just one of them, paddling in the edges of the water, hooking out fish with claws longer than a man’s hand.

“Fucking hell!”

“I told you!”

“Aye, you did.” He looks down at her, sees the flushed excitement in her face, and for a moment he can almost see the wolf girl in her enthusiasm.  But then she closes down, stern features returning.

“You will be careful, won’t you?”

“I’ve done this before, ma’am!” He throws in the last word, uses the way they address female teachers here to sting her.  And it’s mean, and uncalled for given that she’s gone out her way to help her.  But she always has to know better than him and it gets under his skin like nothing ever bloody has.

Before she can throw back a response he’s jogging down the shorter bank below them and then crunching over the rocks towards the river, keeping an eye on the bear but at the same time calculating in his head what shots he thinks he can take.  And again he gets that odd doubling of time and space, and there’s two of him jogging with a pack on his back, blood pumping in his ears and veins.  And one of them is reaching for a camera.  And the other one is holding a gun in his fists.  And both of them need to take the shot.

He shakes it off and sets up quickly, pulling the tripod out from his pack and extending it with a practised hand. He’ll get as close as he can in a bit, take pictures on the fly, but first he wants some long shots, to set the scene.  He can already see the pictures in some too glossy magazine, sitting on some Manhattenite’s stainless steel coffee table as they blow out hot air about wanting to get out there in the wild and do it themselves… some day.  But he’s out here, right here and now.  And he’s really doing it.

It’s almost perfect. 

And then she’s there.

He can feel the tension in her, feel the stress flowing from her.  He’s probably annoyed her with his rush to the river.  Most like she had some other bloody vantage point in mind.  She’s probably going to correct him, any minute now.

“Something’s not right…”

“Hush yerself! I said, I’ve done this before.”

“No, wait!”

And then he’s looking at the small screen on the camera, blocking her out as he clicks away. 

So he’s too busy checking out the composition, or whatever the bollocks it’s called, and it takes him a moment to twig that the immense brown shape that he’s just getting back into focus is now running towards the lens.  Towards them.

“Fuck-”

It’s all he can say, just an exhalation of breath shaped into the swear word as he gets up again from the camera, before she’s in front of him, standing between him and the bear charging them down.

“Don’t you dare!” She shouts towards it and it’s too fucking perfect, too much of perfectly librarian thing to say that he’s choking on a laugh and pure terror all in one go.  So this is how we die, he thinks, with me pissing myself laughing as a brown bear swipes my head off with one fucking paw!

But the bear stops. 

Its fidgeting, pawing at the ground and displaying fangs that are going to revisit him some sweat soaked night.  But it’s not coming any closer.

Sansa is keeping its eyes locked to hers, leaning slightly forward, one hand cast backwards to keep him away.  And she’s sniffing the air!

“This is what you are going to do, Mr Clegane.  Walk down stream about two hundred yards.  Walk.  Don’t run.  And then go into the treeline.  Wait for me there.”

He almost barks out a quick ‘Sir, yes sir!” And it wouldn’t entirely be in mockery; there’s a shit load of authority in her voice and his muscles are leaping to comply before his mind can shape a more sarcastic response.  So he packs up, and walks just as she’s told him to. And when he’s under the shadow of the trees, he peers back to where he can see her walking her own slow path towards him, the bear watching her go.

“Fuck.  Fuck.  Fuck!” He’s waiting for it to charge again, but it doesn’t, it just turns and runs towards the treeline further up from him. 

And then Sansa is with him, and he’s surprised to find her in his arms, shaking.

“Girl!”

“I’m okay.  I’m okay.” Almost as quickly as she pushed her way into them, she’s leaving his arms and tidying back loose strands of hair from around her face.

“What the fuck happened? Did you just stand down a fucking bear?! Did you just fucking _talk_ to a bear?!” He wants to grab her by the arms and shake her until the world makes sense again.  But she’s so pale and faint looking that he also wants to wrap her up and carry her somewhere safe.  Somewhere a long ways away from the bear.

“It’s not exactly _talking_.  I could make out what was wrong from her body language and her… smell.  But not until we got closer.  I could smell the milk…  She must have cubs somewhere nearby, and I think we got between her and them.”

He rubs a hand across his face, avoiding the scars as usual.  And he sees her watching him do it.  Her eyes dart away, no doubt embarrassed that she’s been caught looking at them.

“I need a bloody drink now!”

“I can guide you back to the truck from here-”

“I need one _now_.  Come on girl, let’s set up camp.”

She gives him a surprised look.

“I brought food too.” Why the fuck does he feel so awkward, he ain’t suggesting they share the bloody tent?  At least, not _her_ and him. 

“Okay.” She says finally.  “I know a place.” And then he’s just following her again like the good obedient dog.  But of course, if he hadn’t obeyed her just then, back by the river, with the fucking bear, he’d have been a dead bloody dog. 

It takes them a short while of more climbing and hiking through trails only she seems to be able to see before they finally reach the place she’s thinking of.  The space around the dead tree overlooks the silver line of the river and is sheltered by the comrades of the fallen one.  There’s plenty of room for a campfire and branches there to drag about to sit on.  And there’s plenty of space for the tent too.

As he’s building the fire he can feel her eyes on him and it, and that same sense of bloody disapproval.

“What is it, girl?!” he barks out at her.

“It’s a bit… small.” And then her eyes are on his fucking burns again.  “I can do it, if you like.”

He shakes his head and gets back to it, building it higher than before and leaving her to put up the tent.  She does it in double quick time.  She must be an old hand at it.

Then silence stretches out between them as they sit and he opens his first bottle.  He thinks about offering her one, but then thinks better of it.

“Winter’s coming.” He says, awkwardly, trying to start some kind of conversation with this girl.  But he didn’t expect the strange look on her face as she stares at him.

“Why did you say that?”

“Because it is.”

She nods. “Are you going to leave?”

He’d never intended to stay for the Winter… but now? He knows he’ll be staying. “No.”

She takes in his brief reply. “You should see about a room at the guest house. You cannot possibly stay in the trailer-” She leaves her sentence unfinished.  The thought of living among all that frill and lace disturbs him.  But not as much as being a few doors down from her.  And the wolf girl. 

“Can’t afford that.” He says gruffly.  But he’s already thinking of ways. These photos will help.  If he could get more.  Get some good close shots of the bear and its cubs.  Or some wolves, maybe…

“Bearpaw is hardly a tourist hotspot, Mr Clegane, the owner is a bit desperate for trade.  I got a good deal-”

“Desperate enough to have a drunk staying?” Her eyes go to his bottle and he braces himself for a sharp comment on it.

“Can I?” She’s asking for one, after all!

“I’m fucking scandalized!” He laughs darkly but opens her one.  Then the scrunched up face and the stuck out tongue make him laugh even more. “That can’t have been your _first_?!”

The word ‘first’ hangs in the air between them, and he’s desperately thinking of a way to move the conversation, such as it is.

“Can I see the pictures you took, please?” She asks, so bloody politely.

She’s put the bottle to one side, and he hopes she isn’t going to bloody well waste it.  He’ll take it if she won’t.  And he’s thinking about that poor wasted beer when he hands over the camera, so it’s a moment before the panic sets in.  By then she’s already got past the few bear pictures and has pressed the button to take her to the next one, not knowing that it’s the wolf girl she’s going to see.

He waits for the cold fire rage, but it doesn’t come.

She’s staring at that tiny screen, absorbed by it.

“You took pictures of her?”

“Are you angry?”

“Why would I be angry?”

“What if someone else saw them?”

“Who would believe it?  I know they’re real and I still thought they might be photo-shopped…” she hasn’t taken her eyes from them and her voice is faint, weak.  “Does she really look like this?”

“Even better in the flesh, trust me.”

“No, I mean… does she really look this… sad?” She looks up at him then and he’s sucker punched in the chest by her large blue eyes.  Her sad blue eyes. “Does she really look this alone?”

“Yes.”

Sansa nods, eyes taken back to the glow of the small screen.

“What happened?” He asks, not really expecting an answer, assuming that she’s going to shut down again on him or snap back with something clever and sharp.

“She killed him.” He gives her space to talk, noting that her hand has put down the camera, gently, and picked up the bottle again.  But she doesn’t drink.  And he understands that.  Sometimes things are just easier with booze, or the idea of booze, at hand.

“We were only fourteen.  We didn’t do much beyond write notes to each other in class really.” She’s staring down at the river wending its way onwards to the south. “He was considered to be very good looking. He was popular.  His family was well known.  I barely knew him.  But he came round to ‘hang out’ at my house one weekend.  I thought he was going to kiss me for the first time.  Maybe he’d want to do more than that.  I even knew where I wanted it to happen.  The kiss that is.  My family has land, and there’s a lake at the end of it.  I thought it would be ‘romantic’ if it happened there.”

She drinks, grimaces, and drinks again. “Are you sure you want to know, Mr Clegane?”

“Only if you want me to.” He near whispers, and she nods.  Then those eyes lock with his, just as they had done with the bear, and she tells him the rest, never looking away.

“My sister was already there with a friend.  Just a local boy.  She’s younger than me.  And they were just play fighting with sticks. And I barely knew my boyfriend.  Didn’t know he was so competitive, so keen to show off to me.  Didn’t know he’d challenge her.  Or be so annoyed when she managed to land a blow on him.  I certainly didn’t know he liked to carry a knife.  And I didn’t know my wolf was already waiting for me, somewhere in the dark, waiting to leap on him and to tear him all to little pieces.”

There it is, the rush of bloody hot relief that there’s a reason behind it all.  That the wolf girl killed, but there was a reason behind it.  And he drinks in celebration, although he’d not have her know he’s celebrating the death of her school boyfriend.  He’s trying to think of a way to get her to understand that there was a fucking good reason for it when she tells him the rest.

“I was fourteen when I left home.  I just didn’t… fit any more.”

“But what about your family? You said this was a family thing, being a werewolf…”

“No.  Enough now, Mr Clegane.” She smiles but there’s no warmth in it.  “Two sips of some warm beer are simply not enough to get me to tell you everything.  Although, after three, I might tell you about the two years I spent camping in the New Forest, feeding on the ponies that live wild there.”

It’s meant to disturb him.  Or he’s meant to read it as some kind of too dark joke.   But either way, it’s meant to stop this particular conversation.  He doesn’t bite, and she tries something else instead.

“Rifles and dogs.  Not exactly what you would expect from a wildlife photographer. A _hunter_ , maybe.”

She’s turning it back onto him, and trying to cover the wetness of her eyes with more cold smiles. In another life this little camping trip could have been something warm and fucking cosy, where two people get close under the stars and probably fuck. As it is, there is a distance between them that he doesn’t think can be fully filled in with their tragic back stories. What could it take to bring two broken things like them together? He doesn’t have the fucking experience or the skills to work that little puzzle out.

“After three _bottles_ I might tell you about that too.” He raises the bottle to hers and after a surprised pause she ineptly clanks hers against the glass. But he won’t be telling her anything.

“The sun is setting, Mr Clegane.” She looks towards the reddening sky in the West.  “I should show you the way back to your van before it’s too dark.”

 “Fuck it.  We have beer.  Burgers.  A tent.”

“Yes.  _A_ tent.  Singular.”

“Will you even be sleeping in it?  Or will you be too busy hunting down fucking _ponies_ …”

She passes the camera back to him.  “Its time for you to go. It’s well past the time, in fact.”

He takes it and flicks through a couple of the pictures of the wolf girl, emphasising his leer for her benefit. “Nah, I’m going to stay and wait for the wolf.  See if she fancies rolling over or begging tonight.”

“Don’t you dare!”

“I’m not a fucking bear, Miss Poole! You can’t order me around!”

“She’s not _yours_!”

“Doesn’t sound like you want her, so why can’t I make her a little less sad?  A little less fucking lonely?!”

Sansa gasps as he barks at her.  “You can’t!”

“I could do it. I really could! I could make her come so hard that she doesn’t know what fucking day it is, let alone that her fucking ‘owner’ doesn’t care about her!”

“She’s a wolf! She doesn’t know what day it is anyway, you _moron_!” She’s shouting in his face, red and flushed in the darkening light.  “Don’t you even think of touching her you foul, wretched, old, drunk!!”

“Better that she’s with me than a dry, old, bitch like you!  You should have taken the surname Mordane instead of Poole when you made up your fake fucking identity!”

He has a second to think ‘oh shit!’ before he’s on the ground, the librarian screeching and screaming at him as she batters him with her fists.  Just a second to realise that winding up a werewolf might just be up at the top of any list of the ten most fucking stupid things to do before you die.  Before you’re killed.

And she’s strong, maybe because she’s close to her change, or maybe because he’s made her finally snap.  God, she’s strong! But then the fists stop and the trembling sobs start.  And he’d much prefer that she start hitting him again, because he can ride out the punches, even werewolf strong ones.  He can’t bear to hear her cry like this.

“Sansa…”

“You have her! You have her! I don’t _want_ her!”

She drags herself from him, pulling herself through the fallen leaves to get away from him. And he’s just sitting himself up when suddenly she’s back, sitting on him and forcing herself against his lips with so much need he thinks for a moment that she’s somehow changed before the sun is fully gone and the Full Moon is up.  But it’s not the wolf girl, it’s still the librarian.  Sansa.

“Have her.” She groans against his lips as he starts to respond, hating himself for it even as he pulls her to him and lies back on the ground with her writhing on top of him. “Have her!”

He takes her permission and rolls them both through the leaves, getting on top of her and grasping her hands, putting them above her head as he lies hard against her, his desire for her burning through him like a fire as he kisses her back.

And he’s so on fire that’s only when her teeth nip against his tongue, with that sharper edge, that he realises that she’s actually gone, and that the sun and the moon must have swapped finally, after all.

The silver eyes that look back into his as he pulls away, the eyes that are so very pleased to see him, are not Sansa’s.


	7. Chapter 7

Have her. Have her! _Have her!_

They are her words, but it’s his voice in his head telling him to do it. But whereas her words are still dogged by uncertainties and questions, the echo of them is so very fucking clear and simple.  He acts.

And she’s helping him as he pushes off her thick coat and his, and then works her sweater up, taking it off up over her head as she raises her arms for him, revealing a plain white bra underneath.  The wolf girl grabs at her hair as he watches her, chewing off the tie at the bottom of the braid and releasing the gorgeous red of it as he pauses to take in the sloping curves of her chest in the simple bra. She’s breathing faster, the eagerness of the wolf clear in her eyes as she devours him right back with them, looking at him crouching over her with such naked want and need that his hands are drawn to the waistband and zip of her jeans before he knows what he’s doing.  He starts to drag them off of her, his strength lifting the wolf girl as he yanks at them.  But then he stops.

She’s wearing blue knickers. Pretty little cotton things with a repeating pattern of tiny darker blue bows.  He’d love to push them aside and get into the warm of her with his fingers, push into her until she’s howling with something other than sadness.  But he’s stopped, staring at them and then the bra as the wolf girl looks at him with curiosity filled silver eyes.  Mismatched underwear.

It’s really not a big deal.  And it’s so fucking significant that he can’t move, can barely breath.  Even with Sansa’s words still roaring in his ears, even with the feel of her lips crushed to his still fresh in his mind. It’s not only that he’s surprised that the very proper librarian has put on mismatched underwear, a surprise which reminds him of her usual conservative and very fucking proper way of dressing, and then immediately after, of her usual cold civility.  It’s that he can’t believe that she’d have put them on if she had any intention, or expectation, at all, of him seeing them.  She doesn’t want this. 

No matter what she said about wanting him to have her wolf.  No matter what she did when she straddled him and begged her to have her.  This isn’t what she wants.

It’s what the wolf wants though, and she’s pushing down at the jeans now, shedding her Sansa skin like a snake.

“No.  Don’t do that.” He says hoarsely, but she’s already out of them and jumping up to a crouch opposite him, wearing just the white and the blue, her head tilting in that questioning way.

“I can’t… I can’t have you.  Not that way.” How much does she understand, this beautiful wild thing?

Enough it seems to hook her hands behind her and rid herself of another part of Sansa.  Her breasts, freed, are covered over with goosebumps, and it’s not being caused by the cold the werewolf doesn’t feel.  He sees her nipples, hard and a silvery pink in the moonlight and he’s having to keep a very strong grip on himself or he’d be moving so fucking fast to get them into his mouth to lick and nibble on.

He growls, he’s nearly at the end of his fucking self-control!

So when she slides her long fingers inside the waistband of the knickers, he surrenders and quickly pushes her back down into the mess of dirt and leaves, grabbing at them himself and pulling them away and off of her as she croons to him.  Then his mouth is on her tits, finally, nuzzling against them as she has done before to his chest, running his ruined mouth against the softness of them, not caring that he can’t entirely feel on that side of his face, just wanting to be close to her.  His hands cup her arse, fighting back his moment of shock when his fingertips brush her tail, and then he grinds against her as she has done against him.  The breathy sounds from the wolf girl are mostly those the woman made when she demanded that he have the wolf, kissing him with all her rage and sorrow, but now with a slight growl in them. 

When her long nails trace through the dark strands of his hair the urge to moan her name is strong, but he doesn’t know what to say.  That thought makes him stop and look deep into the silver eyes.

“I want to… I want to have you.” And the double meaning of that word is back, the uncertainty coming out when he says it now.  Yes, of course he fucking wants her as a man wants a woman.  But he also wants to have her in the way that Sansa does not.  He wants her to belong to him.

She arches her back, turning her head and stretching out her long elegant neck as she has done before.  Is this how wolves do it? How they claim their mates? He wishes he’d done some fucking research! The bloody librarian would know of course!  Even so, she’s not a wolf, not a proper one, so maybe everything is different for werewolves anyway?  But some instinct tells him that however he does it, with words, with fucking, with this, she will understand what he means. 

He leans over her and growls deeply in her ear. “Mine.” Then he opens his mouth and rests his teeth against her neck, putting enough pressure on her soft skin that she knows that they are there, but not enough to hurt her.

He is shocked to see tears in her silver eyes when he lets her go.  They are silver too, not clear like water but opaque, more like mercury.  And he knows what he should do too.  Because she isn’t a wolf, not really, and he isn’t a wolf… or a dog… either.  Not anymore. So he bares his own neck to her.

“Yours.”

The sharpness of a werewolf’s teeth at his neck will be something that he remembers for a long bloody time, and he whispers a quick prayer to any listening deity that he doesn’t ever feel it again.  Something primordial, some deeper animal part of him, is fucking terrified to be in the grip of the predator.  But the man trusts the wolf girl.  Even as those sharp points bruise his stubbled skin.

But she releases him as well, lying back again onto the ground with her mouth still slightly open, the glimmer of white fangs in her mouth.  And it’s fucking hard to think clearly when he’s lying between her glorious legs with only a pair of his jeans between his cock and her.  His… mate.  Who really wants to mate with him.  Who really wants _him_ , of all fucking people.  So he gets up, reaching out a hand for her.

“Come on now, lass, let’s go and get comfy in the tent.”

He leads her there, collecting his camera and Sansa’s clothes as he does, his eyes drawn again to those cute little knickers before he laughs at the weirdness of focussing on them when there’s a naked woman happily holding his hand and following him into the tent.

She lies down swiftly inside, carving out a space for him next to her with the bow shape of her body. Lying next to her is painfully sweet, especially when the wolf girl traces long nails over his ruined face and his hair, absorbed in him in a way no one ever has been before.  He does the same to her, running calloused fingertips over her tumbling, tangled, hair, her slightly bruised and swollen lips, even against the pearl white fangs in her mouth when she shows them to him.  She’s proud of them, he realises, and he thinks of the librarian, who certainly is not.

“Sansa?” He asks, looking for any sign of recognition, but the wolf girl is concentrating on running fingers over his chest now, almost pouting at the excess of clothes that she thinks he’s wearing.

“Mine.” The sound from her mouth is more of a growl than a word, but he can just make it out, surprise running through him like an icy fire.  She spoke?!

“What?!”

She moves closer, running her soft face over his chest and neck. “Mine.” She growls into his burnt ear.

“Yes.  Yes, _yours_.” He whispers. And then she’s kissing him, that gentle sighing kiss that is only hers, that is only giving.  It makes him remember his snapping, crass words to the librarian, about how he could make the wolf girl happy, how he could make her less alone.  It’s going to drive him insane with need, or even kill him with the strain of resisting, but he _could_ give, instead of taking what the librarian doesn’t want him to have. 

He pushes at her, gently, rolling her onto her back, as he threatened to do before.  Rolling over and begging.  But he’s the one who wants to beg because he’s not certain that this will work and he really, really needs it to.  He thinks of a half forgotten woman, some pick up from some bar, who he first tried this on.  The only time he tried this before.  The only time he gave instead of taking, but only because she demanded that he do it, and he had always been trained to obey.  He remembers her lies.  How good it was.  How hard he made her come.  But the wolf girl can’t lie, he’s certain of that. 

He finds his own invisible trails across the smooth wilderness that is her body, finding hidden pathways that seem to delight and please her as his lips leave prints on her breasts, her bare belly, her hips. And then he’s between her legs, feeling the silk of her thighs on the burns and the stubble as he tastes her.  And god, she tastes good! She’s earth and dirt, and something musky, and a sweetness that could be the librarian’s soap, or something she just naturally smells of.  She’s the scent that comes into his trailer when the rain is coming.  She’s winter winds smelling of the wild, and she’s a spring melting that turns frozen lands into a river of slick silver.  She’s wet and groaning and he’s her dog, just lapping at her, but also spreading her and claiming her for his own as her long nails scratch against the sleeping bag under her. But the dog is still begging that this will bring her to the place where she isn’t alone, where she knows she’s wanted.

When the trembling starts, when the growl rumbles through her, down to the thighs at his side, he runs a fingertip around the entrance to her, where he’s wary about going.  Finger swaps with tongue, and he rubs at her clit, dipping mouth to suck at her want.  And then the wolf girl is coming, the trembling becoming shudders and gasps that tell him he’s found the way without a guide, hiked his own way to the wolf’s secret den, where she lives.  Where he won’t leave her alone again.

The girl is still breathing heavily when he returns to lie next to her, silver eyes wide and very, very surprised at what just happened.  He brings her closer and surrounds her with his arms. But then her hands start to explore him, running up his back, under his sweater, and he has to gently push them away, happy instead just to hold her close and smell her hair under his nose, happy that he’s given her something. 

Then there is a stab of guilt when the heart breaking sorrow of the librarian comes to his mind.

It’s with her in mind that he suddenly finds his hands moving again to the juncture of the wolf girl’s thighs, lying so close, that he suddenly finds himself urging her on to another peak, another moment of comfort.  Is that fair, that he’s thinking of Sansa this time? How separate are they, really? Is he being unfair? He doesn’t even fucking know any more.  But the wolf girl isn’t complaining as she pants against his mouth, as he tips her over into another orgasm.  Could there be a way to make both of them happy?

He doesn’t know how much time they spend lie there in the tent, the bright light of the Full Moon illuminating them through the material.  Him still fully dressed and in near fucking agony as he brings her to orgasm after orgasm.  Her naked and starting to sweat lightly as he repeatedly caresses her.  He loses count, forgets how many times he uses his mouth and how many times it’s just the touch of his fingers that does it for her.  He even brings her to a shuddering, crying mess by rubbing hard against her with the roughness of the jeans covering him, and that time he’s an inch away from spilling himself inside them as he did before.  After that time she pushes at him, climbing on top to try to ride him over his jeans into his own climax, before he makes her lie down again.  He’s just about holding on, even in the face of her gentle concern and her attempts to touch him in return which he keeps pushing away.

Finally the wolf girl is a just languid long limbed mess, breathing heavily as she watches him from under half closed eyes, still lying on her back after the last time. She’s crooning slightly as her eyes stare at him, and he’s never seen such a complete state of bliss.  And that he’s done this for her… he never knew it was what he wanted until now.

“Sleep now, little lady?” He whispers to her, trying to ignore the worst case of blue balls mankind has ever fucking known.  But she moves, slowly sitting up and reaching a hand out to him.  “What’s this now?” he asks.

She frowns and picks up his camera, pushing it at him.

“Pictures, now?!” He asks, surprised.  Does she want more pictures of her?  Like this? With sweat sheened skin and tangled hair?  Fuck knows what the librarian would make of pictures like that?! But then she’s up and out of the tent, making him follow as she darts towards the woods. 

And then they’re running through the woods again, making a slightly slower pace this time though as she makes certain that he’s following.  It’s fucking hard to run when he’s in this state, but the cold and the uncertainty about what’s happening are both working their dulling magic on his body, and soon he’s back to normal.  Or as close as he thinks he can get when his body’s still aching for her and for his own release.

He follows her to the base of a sheer wall of natural stone, and he creeps along it with her as she slows and crouches down.  Suddenly he sees where she’s brought him.  An indentation in the wall, not a cave as such, just an overhang of rock.  And underneath it there’s a mass of brown dark hair turned almost black in the moonlight. A deep breathing, sleeping monster.  The bear.

Heart beating wildly, he watches her crouch among the fallen branches nearby the beast, watching it with silver eyes as its head appears from the large mound of fur and considers her.  Whatever passes between them is completely non-verbal.   But when silver eyes flash at him again he knows exactly what she wants and he raises his camera, messing about with the exposure, before trying to find a way to keep it steady to take night shots. He might not have a lot of time!

When the cub emerges he knows he’s got something pretty fucking special.  When it nuzzles the wolf girl’s hand and he captures just that, none of her, just that pale elegant hand touching it gently, then he thinks he might have something special that’ll sell _big_. Maybe make him enough cash so he can settle in town for the winter. Was that what this was about? Was that what made her drag him through the woods in the middle of the night? Made her get up from their new den after he’s made her come so often all she should want to do is sleep? But it was the _librarian_ who suggested he move into town.  Again that fucking infuriating puzzle; where does the wolf stop and the girl start?

The wolf girl moves to him, pulling him away as the cub finds its way back through that thick dark fur to sleep. He follows her back through the trees, the moonlight illuminating the long flow of her hair, the lines of her back as she walks just ahead of him.  And he would fucking follow her anywhere.

Back at the tent, they curl up again next to each as though the trip to see the bear was just a forest inspired mad dream.   And with her against him, warming him, he does finally sleep.

***

He wakes alone, panicking slightly, then mocking himself for so quickly getting used to her small form next to his after so many fucking few days… or nights. 

He emerges from the tent and she’s out there, sitting on a fallen bough, running fingers through her hair as she tries to straighten it out again.  Dressed. In her Sansa skin.

She turns as she hears him approaching.  And he’s already braced for anger, so he’s surprised when it’s not there in those sky blue eyes, just a quiet watchfulness.

Silence between them. 

“How do you feel this morning?” He asks finally, thoughts of his teeth on her neck flashing in his mind. _Mine.  Mine.  Mine._ But looking at the librarian all he can see is a stranger.

“Odd.  Strange.  What happened last night after I…”  The blush and then the straightening of her back again as she tries to cover it.

“Mounted me?” Fuck it, it would somehow be better to see her cursing and raging than this attempt at frosty disinterest.

“Yes… after that.” She accepts his version, but her voice is just as cold.

He sits opposite her. “How do you feel?”

“You already asked that.” Clipped, curt words as she tries plaiting her hair, giving up when she realises that she has nothing to tie it with at the end.  She lets go of it and it starts to unravel as she talks, her voice softening as she thinks.  “I feel… strangely calm.  Like nothing can bother me this morning, not even you.”

He laughs darkly but she cuts him off with her next words.

“Am I still a virgin?”

“Fucking hell!” He rubs his face. “I didn’t-! We didn’t-!”

 “But something has happened, yes?”  He goes to answer and she holds up a hand. “Maybe it doesn’t matter.  Maybe I don’t need to know.  It was you and her, not me and you.  And maybe you are right.”

“About what?!”

“That I should start _dating_ , like you said. Not you of course, _like you said_.  But maybe I should try to deal with any unconscious sexual frustration I might be having.  And I really am _well_ past the age when girls in this country generally lose their virginity.  I’ve read the current statistics.  And maybe then, like you said, the wolf will stay away from you…”  She looks up at him with serious, beautiful, eyes, and sharp, barking words echo in his head again.

 Mine.  Mine!  _Mine!_


	8. Chapter 8

Sandor’s head was spinning as he fell back heavily on the floral patterned sheets, the bed creaking  and complaining loudly beneath him.  It could have been because of the nausea inducing decoration scheme in the room, the pinks and lilacs, the doilies and lace that dripped off of every fucking bit of furniture.  Even the fucking toilet roll in the bathroom had a doll in a dress sitting on top of it like the bloody princess of shitting!  Perhaps his head was spinning because of the three beers he’d just chugged down in quick succession.  Or maybe it was just because in the past two weeks things had changed very fast, very quickly.

It’d started after they’d come back from her hunting grounds.  He’d left her in town, with only a few curt, polite words exchanged between them before she walked away, and then he’d e-mailed the photos from their bear ‘hunt’ to the bloke he knew in New York who usually did deals with stock image suppliers for him.  But then he’d come back saying some arty twat he knew wanted to do more with them than just sell them on to a larger corporation who’d license them for a couple of hundred.  This other bloke had some idea of doing a ‘pop-up art exhibition’, whatever the fuck that was, with one of his other clients, some woman who takes pictures of big fucking lizards in the desert. He had some fucking daft name for the exhibition too, ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’.  Arty bollocks, but the show got him some pretty large sales and an advance for another ‘pop up thing’ soon with this same ‘Dany’ bird, this time in LA.  Not that he was fucking going to go to it!

But the money had paid for his move into the guesthouse.  In fact he’d paid for six months in advance, mostly to make sure he didn’t chuck the majority of it down his fucking throat at Bronn’s.  The old woman who ran the place had been over the bloody moon.  Sansa, and he hated to fucking admit this, _ever_ , had been right.  He’d got a pretty sweet deal for the whole winter.  And when the old crone had shown him round one morning, when the librarian was at work, he’d seen why. He could have the fucking choice of almost the entire ten bedroom house.  Of course Sansa had one room.  And there was also some young bloke who’d just moved in, some mechanic.  But other than that he had his pick.

So he’d only bloody taken the room underneath hers, hadn’t he? 

The old woman, Nan, had told him all sorts of sordid and salacious tales about the past tenants of each and every room as her goliath of a grandson had helped him in with her gear after he parked up the trailer.  One of them couldn’t stop talking, and the other, the great lump, had barely opened his mouth.  Sandor suspected he might be a little touched in the head, but he was friendly enough, smiling as his Nan gossiped about every tenant.  All apart from Sansa.  All she’d say about the librarian was that she was quiet and very polite.  But he could of course have another room if her walking about above his head ever bothered him, becuase it was an old house and the floorboards could creak…

Little did Nan know how much Sansa really bothered him! But for some fucking stupid reason he wanted this room, so he only had himself to blame for how out of sorts he felt every fucking time he heard her coming home, the click clack of her heels stopping just outside her room as she then padded about in her tights on the thick carpet inside.  He assumed they’d be tights and not stockings in this wet and chill weather.  And the thought of them, stretched over those cute little blue knickers was almost as bloody arousing as the times in the morning when he heard the shower being turned on above his head, and got the image of her, slick and warm, in the running water.

But an hour ago, when he’d heard her come home, he’d been surprised to hear the shower being turned on and not the usual silence of her reading in the evening, or whatever the fuck a werewolf in human form does in their own time.  That’s when he’d started drinking, because he knew what was going to come next.  And thirty or so minutes later he heard it.  The click clack of her heels again, leaving her room and heading out.  For the evening.  For a date.

“Fuck this.” The house was quiet as he left, only the tick tock of the grandfather clock commenting on him as he walked out, heading down the hill towards Bronn’s, which was now a dangerously close walk away. 

The bar keep was occupied when Sandor came in through the door, bringing in the growing cold in with him along with some leaves.  All he got was a quick nod before Bronn went back to trying to win his way into the pilot’s knickers.  Back again was she? Well, she might not be letting Bronn have his way, but she wasn’t giving him the cold shoulder neither.  Unlike some fucking people he could mention…

He went through to the back and slugged it out with the punching bag for a bit before popping upstairs to Bronn’s tiny apartment above the bar where the man now let him shower.  It was hardly homey, Bronn was an ex-military type who’d held onto the sharp hospital corners they’d beaten into his mind.  A simple bed.  A foot locker.  Clean and simple.  Not like the mess Sandor had already spread out in his new place; empties and clothes everywhere.  After a quick shower Sandor dressed in the clean shirt and jeans he’d grabbed on his way out from Old Nan’s place and took his place in his favourite unlit booth, the current occupant, Dontos, scurrying away at his approach.

He watched Bronn’s play for a bit, trying to work out where the man was going wrong.  Margaery was leaning across the bar towards him again, that tight little arse lifted slightly as she laughed at his probably shit jokes and occasionally touched his arm.  Her smile was warm, her eyes sparkled when she looked at him.  Although that might have been from the optics glowing behind the bar, he thought cynically.  But… and Sandor was loathe to admit it… but he was a bit jealous of Bronn, the twat.  The only girl who had _ever_ looked at him like that disappeared for twenty six days out of twenty eight, or so.

Finally Bronn brought over some beers, and Sandor watched Margaery’s eyes follow the man’s behind as he walked over.

“Is she looking?”

Sandor looked up and growled at the man as he put down the beers.  Plural.

“Are we in fucking school or something?!”

“But she’s looking, right?”

“Aye, she’s looking.”

A smile spread across Bronn’s face, his blue eyes twinkling.

“Oh stop that, you stupid cunt!” Snapped Sandor, and Bronn shrugged, sauntering back to his place behind the bar, smiling broadly at the pilot. “Fuck, if he ever beds her, he’s going to be fucking unbearable!” Sandor growled into his beer.

Time passed though, and he could see Bronn’s confusion growing.  The pilot didn’t move away, other than to visit the ladies, but she weren’t claiming him either.  ‘Claiming’?! Where the fuck did that word come from? But he knew, he remembered the wolf girl, the feel of her soft skin underneath his teeth.  He drank the next bottle in one go.

He was about to get up to stagger back to Old Nan’s place when the doors opened and Sansa walked in.  It was busier now in the bar, and men in plaid shirts and women in too tight lycra dresses had been going in and out all night, and he’d ignored every single fucking one of them.  But as soon as she came in his eyes went straight to her.  She was wearing that smart black coat again, the one with the shiny buttons all the way up it, but it was open. She doesn’t feel the bloody cold, now does she? And underneath she wore a pretty blue dress, floaty, fluttering at the bottom somewhere around her mid thigh, a slightly lower top to it than he’s seen on her before, but not indecent like some of the monstrosities he’s seen women wearing tonight in the bar.  And she looks good enough to fucking eat.  Which reminds him of the tent, and gets his blood stirred up again.

She’s walking over to Bronn, smiling shyly at him and the pilot who’s looking her over with a discerning eye before giving her a warm smile back.  He can’t hear them over the usual bar drone, but he sees Bronn’s nod in his direction.  Also, he sees her pause as she turns towards him, pause near the pilot, just for a second, before she’s click clacking her way over to his booth, that handbag held in her hands again.  Like a fucking shield.

“May I sit with you? Please, Mr Clegane? I’ve asked Bronn to bring over some drinks.”

‘Bronn’ is it?! Twat!

“Sure.” She smiles even though he’s curt and then she sits opposite him, across the table.  He’s not sure what he’s expecting her to say, but the sudden look of confusion on her face which is quickly replaced by a look of intense concentration as though she’s working out some kind of sum in her head, throws him.

“Sansa? Are you okay?”

She nods, but the furrow is still there between her brow.  “Wait… but why wouldn’t she just change her schedule?”

“Do you need me here for this bloody conversation, or should I leave the two of you alone?!” He barks at her.  God, no one annoys him like she does.  What the fuck is she doing here anyway?

“It’s nothing.  I just thought for a moment I knew why your friend hasn’t… isn’t… with the pilot yet-”

“He ain’t my friend.  And you really shouldn’t be thinking about doing it, if you can’t even say the word!”

She blushes, but then she’s looking back at Bronn and Margaery as the man gets a couple of drinks together.  Beer and red wine.  He brings them over.  Yeah, the pilot’s still watching Bronn as he moves.

“Wine for you Sandor, and beer for the lady?” He puts them down that way.

Smart mouthed little fucker!

“Beer’s mine.” He snaps, swapping them quickly.  And he’s surprised to see Sansa blushing almost as red as some of the lights in here as Bronn walks away.  Suddenly this boring article from the inflight magazine that he read on the long haul flight to Anchorage pops into his mind.  Some shit about marketing using subconscious learning.  And it mentioned a Russian scientist who’d experimented on dogs, which stuck in his mind, of course it bloody did.  He’d ring a bell every time that they were fed, until they salivated every time a bell was rung.  He was certain that Sansa had reacted to something he said.  _‘Mine’!_  

He’s fucking tempted to throw it into every sentence, but it’s hard to work the conversation that way, especially since she’s still got one eye on the Bronn and Margaery ‘will they, won’t they’ show at the bar.

“Red wine? That your favourite now?  Can’t say it’s _mine_.” Which is a lie, because he’ll drink any fucking thing… but he watches her fidgeting.

“I had a little at dinner.  I liked it.”

Dinner? Who with?!  He tries again.

“I moved into the guest house, you know.  You’ve got the room above _mine_.”

She’s blinking slightly more than usual, and is she breathing a little faster too?  This game is fun, he thinks, smiling darkly.

“Just a minute, sorry, excuse me.”

And then she’s up, walking quickly back to Margaery who Bronn has left on her own, finally, for a moment as he serves someone else.  Sansa is talking to her, but again he’s frustrated by the noise in the bar and can’t make anything out.  Margaery is smiling as Sansa gestures to her tumbling brown hair.  Then the pilot is near stroking her own hair with one hand as she gestures at Sansa’s red hair.  Which, he has to admit, looks fucking amazing tonight, loose and flowing in waves over her shoulders. Sansa is smiling and chatting and then they are both laughing.  Then Sansa looks at Bronn, further down the bar, and leans in towards Margaery to say something.  And the pilot smiles wryly, her cat like eyes glimmering as she pauses and then counters with something else.  Suddenly Sansa is whispering in the other woman’s ear, which makes her smile even more, and then the two of them are hugging! Fuck, do women have some kind of bloody secret language, or fucking handshake, that can make them friends in fucking minutes?!

Sansa is walking back as Bronn takes up his place again on the other side of the bar to Margaery.  And there is a fucking triumphant smile on the librarian’s face.

“What the fuck was all that about?!”

“Just watch.”

And they do, the two of them in their dark corner booth, as Margaery takes Bronn’s face in both hands and plants a large kiss on his lips, nearly being dragged over the bar as he wraps huge hands across her back and pulls her closer, kissing her harder.  The bar erupts into wolf whistles and cheers, and the two disengage, eventually, smiling meekly.

He stares at Sansa. “What are you, some kind of werewolf agony aunt?”

“It was just the application of logic actually.” She watches Bronn and Margaery, sneaking kisses as he works.  More and more kisses, ignoring Dontos’ wolf whistles, as he’s never been one to give up on a joke when others have already moved on.

“Oh do please help out the slow kids at the back of the room!”

Sansa looks back at him, arching an eyebrow. “It’s about her monthly cycle.”

For a moment he thinks she’s telling him that there are two werewolves in Bearpaw, but then he gets the other meaning.  He drinks.

“Her schedule brings her here at an… ‘inopportune’ time of the month.”

“Surely she could have changed routines, or hung about for longer?”

“That’s what I thought.  And then I thought… maybe she’s _not_ doing that because she doesn’t want to rush into something with him.  Maybe her cycle became some kind of excuse… or a chastity belt.”

“So what did you say to her?”

“I told her she’d only know about him if she gave him a chance.  I think she’s going to hanging around a bit longer this visit.” She’s smug, and part of him wants to wipe that smugness off of her face.  But he fights the urge.

“How did you know… about her ‘monthly cycle’?”

The colour drains from her face then, and he wonders what he’s said wrong.  She drinks her wine, smiling falsely. “I don’t know, just a hunch.”

“The logical, rational librarian working from a ‘hunch’?!”

But she doesn’t answer, she’s too busy staring at the door to the bar.  As Jorah Mormont comes in.

“Oh no, oh no!”

“What’s he fucking done?!”

“No, it’s me!  I made an excuse after we finished dinner.  I said I had to go home…”

Sandor’s ready to stand up as the man gets closer in his cravat and fucking sportsjacket.  Ready to take whatever shit he’s going to throw at Sansa for leaving.  For lying.  She came here didn’t she?  She came to him.  Fuck Mormont, she went were she wanted to go.  Or where part of her wanted to go.  And he’s going to defend the wolf girl if this balding man in a stupid fucking neck scarf gives her any shit!

But he doesn’t do anything.

“Sansa.  Sandor.” He nods, and then turns away from them, heading to the bar where Bronn pours him a big whiskey.

Sandor smiles and leans back in the booth, but Sansa’s mortified.  “Come on lass, he’s a good loser. Maybe he thinks its about time someone took a woman from him, and not the other way around”  He needles her, intentionally, and she glares at him. “But why did you leave him?  Thought you wanted to ‘date’? And he’s considered a pretty good catch around here.”  In fact, one of the lycra clad vultures is already circling.

“He was nice.  A real gentleman.” And there’s a dig there, he’s certain. “But… something wasn’t right.  Something wasn’t right with him…  He didn’t smell right.” The last part is so quiet he’s almost not sure he heard her right.

“He smells bad?!”

“No! Just not… right.  I didn’t notice before.”

 He considers her as she silently drinks her wine, darkness suddenly in her eyes. Confusion again?  What’s going on with her?  But then her eyes are back on Bronn and Margaery.  Shit those two will need a room soon… cycle or no fucking cycle!  Dontos has even had to step behind the bar to help out with the orders while they are tangled in each other!

She looks back at him and for a moment he’s dazzled by those blue fucking eyes.  So there is a brief moment before he really hears what she’s saying now.

“I think we should have sex.”

He near spits out some of his beer.  “What the fuck?! What did you say?!”

“I’ve read that women can do that now.  Just have sex with men, with no emotional entanglements.  And I think it’s time I did.  Have sex that is.”

He’s already imagining it of course, because he’s already got half the picture from the wolf girl, and of course he bloody wants more.  But…

“Why?”

“Why? I told you, I think I should deal with any unconscious sexual frustrations…”

“Wait, ain’t it the New Moon now abouts? Should you be being rational and logical and all that bollocks?!”

“An arrangement like that sounds extremely logical to me.”  She’s drinking again.  Is this the wine? It certainly isn’t what he expects from the librarian.

“All right, Spock.  But think about this.  You wanted to ‘date’ so you could fix your frustrations.  So you could stop the wolf visiting me.  But if you’re shagging me anyway, doesn’t that defeat the bloody purpose?!”

He’s got her there, and she’s stuttering and stumbling out a reply.

“We could… I could…” her face is reddening again, and he’s reminded of the wolf girl, her trembling and shuddering as he made her come.  And he definitely wants to see if the librarian works the same way.  But what he wants, even more than that, is to see if he can find a trace of the wolf in the girl, if he can bring her out from her hiding place.  If they can both be with him at the same time in that moment when he makes her cry out.

“I never said no, did I? All right. Come back to mine.”

Her eyes close for a second longer than they should as he says the last word.

“No.  Mine.” She says, firmly, and then he’s the one shivering at the use of that bloody word! “It’s tidier.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know.”

And he shrugs.  He then follows her out of the bar, just as he followed the wolf girl back through the woods.  Like a dog on a fucking leash for her.


	9. Chapter 9

Why the fuck was this so bloody awkward?! He watched her out of the corner of his eye as they slowly walked their way back up the hill to the guesthouse, keeping to the wooded side of the road as the occasional car’s headlights flared past them.  She was deathly silent, and he did not have a fucking clue what to say to her now! He didn’t know what to say, but the urge to pull her to his side and to slide a hand up that the dress that was kissing her thighs was bloody strong, but he didn’t.  He couldn’t.

It wasn’t as if this was his first bar pick up. Of course they were usually drunker. The librarian had only had a single glass of wine, most of the women who looked past his scars and towards his bed had bottles full before they drunkenly targeted him.  Or they were able to keep their attention on his broad chest rather than his face as he idly found out if they’d be up for coming back with him.  They either did or they didn’t, and he was apathetic enough when in his cups to let it go if the answer was no.  It didn’t bother much him anymore. There might be another woman in some other bar who would say yes.  Or how much. But this silence, this mute acquiescence bothered the fuck out of him.

Then they were there, walking up that red path to the overwrought wooden archway to the guesthouse’s front door, like Hansel and fucking Gretel.  And of course the bloody old witch had to be there when they opened the door and went into the entrance hall.  Old Nan looked up at them from where she stood by the grandfather clock, and her wiry eyebrows shot up.  Great, now they’d be joining her litany of stories about tenants and their sexual escapades!

He was so pissed off that for a moment he didn’t notice the man with his head in the workings of the clock. Or that the bloody thing was chiming constantly, loudly.  But he did notice the fucking stink of his aftershave, it hit the back of his throat like a punch.  Sansa was actually stepping backwards, as though reeling from it, and he wondered if that meant her wolf senses were making a New Moon appearance. She’d said Jorah smelt wrong, hadn’t she?  Known that Bronn’s pilot was bleeding at the moment…

“Ah, Mr Clegane, Miss Poole! I’m sorry about this, but something’s gone wrong with my great grandfather’s clock and Mr Waters here is taking a look.  I don’t think you’ll be getting much _sleep_ tonight if he can’t fix it.” Those eyebrows wagged at him and fought the urge to snap at her, interfering bloody biddy!

The man in the clock stood back from the wretched device, and Sandor got a good look at him for the first time.  Young.  About Sansa’s age maybe.  Muscled too, under that too tight bloody white t-shirt.  A mop of scruffy black hair.  A ready fucking smile.  And that wretched stink of pour homme, or whatever.  Probably thinks he’s some kind of ladies’ man, dousing himself like that! Sandor found him wanting to move himself between him and Sansa.

“Call me Robert.  But I told you Nan, I don’t know if I can fix it.  I’m a mechanic, not a clock expert!” His eyes were on Sansa, near enough staring, and Sandor saw her lowering her own under his obvious attention.  What the fuck?!

“I might be able to rig something up to block the hammer until you can get someone else in to take a look… at least then Miss Poole can get to bed.  And Mr Clegane.”

“Sansa.  Call me Sansa.” Her smile was cautious as this ‘Robert’ brushed a hand on his jeans and then shook hers.  He offered it to Sandor next. 

The boy was muscled and fit looking, but Sandor had years of experience on him. Years of using his strength for fucking more than tuning cars and changing tyres.  The boy starting wincing after a few minutes.  Then Sandor let him go.

“Sandor.” He said grudgingly and the boy nodded, massaging his hand behind his back.

“Well, I should really get to bed.  Thank you Mr Clegane for walking me back from town.” Chirped Sansa.

“Oh, that was very sweet of you ‘Mr Clegane’.  Very chivalrous!” Wittered Old Nan and he scowled as Sansa made her way up the wooden staircase without even a single look back.

Fuck her then! He nodded to Nan and the Robert twat, before going to his room on the ground floor.

Inside he let his frustration out, kicking piles of clothes and empties, chucking a stack of books, the books from her fucking library, onto the floor.  He pushed back the large growl that wanted to erupt from his chest, the howl of the beast that he was holding in most of the fucking time now _himself!_ But eventually he sunk down on the bed, staring into the dark of the room and just glowered, hearing the back and forth of Nan and the young idiot outside in the hallway, the chimes of the clock finally stopping and then, fucking finally, the two of them going away too, each back to their own rooms.

The house was quiet.  

So quiet that the tiniest sound caught his ear quickly.  The creak of the floorboard outside her room.  Another sigh of wood as someone stepped down the stairs in the dark. He was on his feet then, grabbing armfuls of clothes and stuffing them into the wardrobes, pushing bottles under the bed, restacking her beloved books! He just made it.

The hesitant knock at his door would have been missed by anyone not holding their breath to hear it.  But he was there in a second, opening it and letting her in before Nan got any more good gossip on them!

Sansa was still in her floaty blue dress, but she had removed her shoes to pad more silently about the guesthouse.  She stood there, by the door in the dark, tights covered feet rubbing against each other as uncertainty flowed from her.  He moved quickly to the bedside lamp with the ridiculous tassels all around it and flicked it on to see her better, before coming back to her at the door.  Blue eyes met his, and her wide eyed anxiety was quickly replaced by something harder in them, something colder and more controlled. He leant towards her…

But she quickly walked around him and across the carpet to take a seat at the end of his bed, ignoring the hastily smoothed out bedspread and the bottle her foot knocked on the floor.

“Take your clothes off.” She said.

He started to comply even as he’s inner voice complained about how she had said it.  It wasn’t so much stern and cold as… clinical.  He felt like he was in a doctor’s examination room, and any moment now she was going to take his fucking pulse! If she did, she’d know how it was going like the bloody clappers!  But if she wanted to play doctors and nurses, he was up for that.  Parts of him were very fucking keen, truth be told.

He unashamedly stripped for her.  He knew he was taller, broader, than a lot of men.  He knew he’d kept a lot of the muscles from his days in the army… worked on them lately too with his running and his visits to Bronn’s gym.  He was in a pretty good state for an old drunk.  And he had the upper fucking hand didn’t he? Because he’d seen already seen her naked.  While she’d never even seen a naked man in the flesh before!

So he was a little pleased to see that the doctor’s professionalism cracked when she saw him, really saw him, her eyes lowering, fluttering as she looked away.

“Which position do you think would be best? I’ve read a few articles…”

He moved quickly, crouching down at her feet and yanking her forward to the very edge of the bed, using his large hands to pull her thighs apart, making her gasp.

“Stop talking.” He growled.

“We should discuss how this will work… our arrangement.”

“Stop thinking.” He pushed at the silkiness of her dress, bunching it up around her waist, before hooking his fingertips into the top of her tights, noting for a second the pale pink knickers through them.

“I thought maybe once a week…”

“I’ll fuck you whenever you want it.  That enough of an arrangement for you?” He pulled her tights away, ripping them but not caring.  She had to stop thinking, she had to stop talking, fretting, controlling, planning, ordering… feeling sad…

He pulled down her knickers, forcing her to lift up her hips as he brought them down and then chucking them aside as her hair drifted between them like a red, sweet smelling, curtain. 

Then she was there, beneath his lips again, tasting like the best fucking drink in the world, better than beer, whiskey or even the red wine. But smelling different this time, sweeter, more artificial. Soap and shampoo.  Perfume. Flowers and chemicals twining in his head as he begins to urge the librarian to the same place he’d taken the wolf girl so many times.

“What are you… oh!”

She finally stopped talking, little moans coming from her as she lays herself back on the bed under his attentions.  This time he’s willing to explore where he’s going to bury himself later, willing to slide fingers up into the slickness of her, inside where it’s hot and tight around his finger.  The moans are louder, but she also sounds surprised. Of course, no one’s done this to her before.  She doesn’t even remember him bringing the wolf girl to the crashing nothingness of her orgasms.  He laps at her harder, moving inside her at the same time, feeling her closer and closer to where he wants to bring her.  And then she’s falling again, hips moving instinctively as she shudders and gasps, falling into the nothing where questions about arrangements and positions are fucking irrelevant. Where, for just a moment, she won’t think… _can’t_ think.

She’s still breathing heavily when he lies himself beside her, palming her breast and rubbing her nipple, making her moan again because he’s not given them any fucking attention yet.  But there’s surprise on her face.  Shock even.

“Was that… was that…?!”

“You know what it was.”

“Is that how it should feel?”

“Fuck if I know.  You never done it before? Even on yer own?!”

The proper little lady is back for a moment, even with her skirt still up around her waist. “No!”

“You should.  Or I should.” He runs fingertips down the length of her belly, moving to her cunt again and just idly playing there for a moment. “If that’s all you want…” He hopes that it isn’t, but he’ll hold back for her.

“Do you have condoms? I bought some.  I didn’t know what to get so I got a few packs of each kind. But they’re upstairs.”

He winces, she doesn’t even knows what she’s saying, oblivious again to the things that she does to him.  It’s not that she’s prepared, he kind of expects nothing less from the librarian.  She probably looked up reviews online... Or that she has decided that she should use them, to be safe.  It’s that she most like didn’t buy them with him in mind.  She was going to go on fucking ‘dates’.  But at least it aint Jorah getting the use of them! Or the dark haired clock fixing cunt…

“I’ve got them.” Somewhere.  It’s been a while.  But they should be good still. Bedside drawer? He thinks so.

“Good.” She’s sitting up, unzipping her dress at the side and then removing it quickly.  And then the bra, another one not matched to her knickers.  She’s just throwing her clothes off as though he didn’t want to slowly, leisurely, undress her for himself, like some kind of present he’d never expected.  As though he’s just here for one fucking thing.  He’d be cross, but he wants it.  Wants her.  And maybe if he makes her moan enough that fucking cold front will melt again.  He’s seen her wolf girl, he knows she can be soft, kind and needful.  He knows it. 

She’s scooting back up his bed and then just lying there waiting for him.  It’s not exactly a sultry position, but the curves of her body are calling her even as she lies there so woodenly. He finds one in a drawer and does what needs to be done, before stalking back up the bed towards her. 

“You want this?  You sure?” He asks because he can’t quite believe that they got here, all his blissful experiences and memories made with the wolf girl have disappeared like some kind of dream now that he’s with the librarian and her frost has hit him like a blizzard.

“Yes.  Please.”

He half hears the silent ‘Mr Clegane’ after the please, but he’s too far gone now to have that put him off. She’s saying that she wants him and that’s all his body is hearing.  And if he’s urged her to one orgasm already, perhaps if he can take her there again he’ll find the wolf hidden in her?

But it’s her first time. 

He’s as gentle as he can be, lying down against her, warming her with kisses to her chest, her nipples, and getting his hand between her thighs to caress her there.  He kisses her, and she’s all clashing teeth… dull teeth… again until he starts to get her following the motions of his tongue and lips.  It’s not the wolf girl’s gentle, loving kiss, but there’s still something there.  She gasps a little as he slips a finger in her again, feeling for whether she’s ready for him. And then her hands are on his face, cupping both sides of the great ruin of him and her lips are soft like the wolf girl's.  That’s when he finds her beneath him and pushes into her.

She’s frowning, whimpering, so he’s as slow as he can go.  Slower than his body wants, resting his forehead on hers as he concentrates on not hurting her.  But god, she’s everything he’d imagined she’d be! Hot and holding him as he gives her himself.  There are small cries from her as the final barrier between them goes, but he knows that he’s already long gone for her himself.  Between the wolf and the girl he never stood a fucking chance!

He moves slowly in her, hoping that the initial pain is dulling, that she’s feeling him now and not it.  But even though she’s holding onto his shoulders, her breasts rubbing against him, her lips ready for his whenever he takes them, she’s not moaning like she was with his face between her thighs.  He tries all the tricks he can think of.  Slow, languid thrusts that make her feel the length of him. Slightly quicker thrusts, building a rhythm for as long as she can take it.  Pressing and rubbing on her clit as he moves.  Nothing.

But it’s doing for him.  The smell of her hair lying on his pillow.  The way her hips are moving against his.  The memory of that oh so proper librarian just telling him in the bar that she’s thinks that they should have sex.  Walking with her in the night, up the hill towards the guesthouse, wanting to push her against a tree at the side of the road to have her there and then, from behind like they’re both dogs. Or a wolf and a dog.

The memory of the creaking floorboard outside of her room as she left it to come to him.

And then he’s done, coming hard even as he holds himself back so as not to hurt her with his final thrusts.  And he’s the one who can’t think, can’t talk.

But she wasn’t there.  She lies beneath him as his breath comes back to him, fingertips trailing on his shoulder, but not with him. 

He lies back on the bed and both of them stare at the ceiling.

“Are you okay?” He asks finally.

“Yes, thank you.”

He hears the unspoken ‘Mr Clegane’ again.  It’s not what he hoped for.

“Did I hurt you?”

“Not really.”

He should pull her closer. He should hold onto her like he does the wolf girl. Hold her until she sleeps.

She’s moving already, looking for knickers, tights, her dress.  “Well. Thank you.”

He sorts himself out as she stands and zips herself up again.  But he’s damned if he’s going to dress again!  Was this how it felt when he left those women, the bar pick ups… after? Most seemed fucking fine about it, especially if they were sobering up and saw his face properly for the first time.  He lies on the bed and watches her running fingers through her hair.

“You’re welcome.” There’s bitterness in his voice, he knows.  She stares at him for a second, her eyes a darker blue in the half light from the lamp. 

“Can we… can we do this again?”

He’s surprised.  The way she’s acting he was starting to think he wouldn’t ever see her again.  And his heart was fucking hurting.

“You want to?”

“It was my first time.  Logically it should get… better.” A hand flies to her mouth. “I’m sorry! It wasn’t that it was bad-”

He gestures, pushing the comment away.  And then she’s doing that thing with her feet again, running them over each other through her tights.  Her ripped tights.

“I know it could be better.  You made me… with your mouth.” She’s whispering. And then he’s moving quickly, crawling up the bed to where she’s standing, crushing her to him as kneels on the edge of it.  Even so he’s towering over her as he kisses her.  He runs kisses against her jaw and onto her neck, where he whispers the word against her flesh like a prayer.  “Mine.”

But she pulls away, and he’s left there at the end of the bed, naked and desiring her again.

“Sandor! That’s not a very… politically correct attitude!”  She’s frowning, and her feminist anger would almost be funny if he hadn’t been praying that that would work, that the magic word would bring out the wolf in her.

“Yours.” He tries instead. Is that feminist enough for the librarian?! It pleased the wolf girl…

She pauses then, the frown fading, her brows relaxing. Her hand, hesitant, almost trembling, reaches out to him, touching his chest.

She smiles. “So hairy.” Fingernails running through the dark hairs, and over his tattoo. “Hairier than a werewolf… maybe.”

He looks up into her eyes, looking for recognition, for a sign that she knows what she’s said, that she knows she repeated his words to the wolf girl back to him.  But it isn’t there.

“Next time will be better, I promise.” She says, placing a kiss on his lips.  Not warm, not cold. And then she’s going, sneaking out into the house and up to her room. Above him.

***

Bronn’s is not open, but the bastard opens the door to his banging anyway, squinting in the white morning light, wearing tracksuit bottoms and nothing else.

“What’s the emergency?”

“Beer.  Whiskey.  Fuck it. Red wine.”

“It’s not even nine yet! I’ll lose my license!”

“Drinks.  Now.”

“I’ve got a visitor.” There’s that bloody smugness. “Though she’s sleeping like a log upstairs… it was a long night.”

Sandor barges in and takes his favourite booth.  The bar in the morning light is a ghostly place, echoing, empty of people and full of memories already. That’s where she sat when she told him that they should do it.  That’s where he decided to go for it, even though, even then, he suspected it was a terrible fucking idea.

Bronn comes over with two beers.  Sandor drinks both.

“So… you want to talk about?”

“No.”

“Can I talk about it?”

“No!”

“Can I talk about Margaery…?”  Bronn’s eyes are misty and happy.  Oh for fuck’s sake!

He carries on anyway. “I’m kind of glad she made me wait now, you know.  Rushing into it would have been a fucking mistake.  And god, did she had an appetite built up!”

“Shut up.”

“Jealousy’s ugly, you know that? Not sure I can walk today.  Her neither…”

Sandor throws one of the bottles away from the booth, over to the bar where it smashes.

But Bronn just looks at him, not reacting. “Saw you take her home with you.”

“I said I don’t want to fucking talk about it!”

Bronn just nods.  Fucking twat!

“God, she’s so… frustrating!” Sandor snaps.

“Of course she is.  You could fuck any woman in this bar if you flashed the cash like Jorah.  Or if you flexed those fucking guns of yours.  But she’s not like them.  She’s a prize to be won.  Okay, maybe she’s the second best looking woman hanging out around here, but she’s not just a one nighter.  Even if she thinks she is.”

Sandor glowers at him. “Bar keep philosophy?”

“Experience.” 

“I want her.”

“Of course you do, mate.”

“No, I want her, not just to fuck.”

“Preaching to the choir.  Margaery’s got me spinning.  She’s heading back this weekend before her boss accuses her of stealing their fucking plane.  I’m going to be pining like a fucking puppy.”

Sandor thinks of that invisible leash Sansa’s got him on already.

“Don’t give up.”  Bronn stands up.  “Now, I’m going to head back upstairs to make sure Margaery wakes up with me there.  There’s a broom behind the bar.” He winks, the cunt.  “Clean up your fucking mess, Sandor.”


	10. Chapter 10

He’s already waking when the cautious knock comes at his door.  Already fighting upwards from the depths of dreams, struggling out from sheets wrapped about him as he runs, runs towards consciousness, the cold sweat drenching his hair.  So it’s no surprise that he reaches for a gun that’s long been locked away in a box in a wardrobe, that he is out of the bed and at the door before he’s fully awake.  But it surprises the girl on the other side, who yelps a little as he drags her into the room and shuts the door behind her.

“What do you want?!” He hisses at her, although he’s more angry at his dreams more than at her.  But it’s the girl in the cream and pink pin striped pyjamas who jumps.  He rubs his face and tries again, trying not to be distracted by how fucking adorable she looks. Red hair falling over pretty pyjamas still fucking un-creased after a night sleeping in them, perfectly buttoned up, covering her up but only making her look even more fucking desirable for it.  She looks like a fucking sweet… or is it _candy_ here?

“I thought… our arrangement?”

“Now? Really?!” He stares back at the bedside table at the digital clock that he replaced the clanging pink alarm clock with.  And seeing it he’s suddenly fucking glad he took Bronn’s advice three days ago and cleared up the other shit up in here too.  The empties are gone, the clothes away.  He even replaced the frilly, flowery sheet covers with plain cotton ones, took away the doilies and the lace.  Even the princess covering the toilet paper in the bathroom is long gone.  And not missed. 

But its 5.34am.

“Bit bloody early, girl.  And didn’t you say once a week? The last time was only a few days ago… I didn’t exactly get it in writing I suppose.” He’s needling her.  But she woke him up!  Or was it a nightmare that had him awake and gasping before her knock came? He’s not sure any more.

“You said whenever I wanted it-”

“‘It’.  You mean _fucking_.”

“Do you have to be so _crude?!_ ”  There’s the bloody librarian again. “Maybe this was a bad idea.” She’s moving towards the door.

“Maybe it was. At 5.34 in the fucking morning!” He snaps.  But he’s just in his pyjama bottoms, and they ain’t exactly going to hide his interest, even if he pretends it ain’t there.

“I’m sorry, Mr Clegane.” For a second he thinks she’s saying it to piss him off, but then he sees her eyes.  Sees the sadness. 

“Stay.  Don’t…” He starts.  But he doesn’t know what to say to her, what soft words might work.  “Stay.”

She pauses, looking back at him, her hand on the door handle.  She let’s go.

“But you have to do one thing for me.” He says as she turns back to him.

“I can try… I don’t exactly have a lot of experience-”

“No! Not something like that! I want you to call me by my name.”

“When you make me come?”

“For fuck’s sake, Sansa.  No!  All the time.  No more of this Mr Clegane shit!” He moves forward, it’s instinctive.  He moves and pulls her against him, wrapping hands about her back to bring that soft cotton against his bare chest.  “I think we’ve been more than introduced…” he dips to kiss her, and after a moment’s surprise she’s kissing him back, tasting deliciously of toothpaste and recently brushed teeth.  But something’s still bothering him.

“Why were you awake so god damn early, Sansa?”  He whispers in her ear as he breathes her in.

“Just a dream. It was just a dream, Sandor.” Her voice is soft but she’s pulled hard against him, against the hardness of him, but it’s delicious agony to not rush this.  He’s not even sure he could if he wanted to, suddenly with the use of his name everything feels slowed down as though he’s moving through thick treacle as he touches her.

But his mind slowly returns to what she just said.  Nightmares.  Well, he knows all about those.  “You okay now?” He wants to take her to the bed and just curl up with her there.  He’ll make her forget whatever it was that woke her.  Does she dream about the boy the wolf killed… like he dreams about the boy he killed?

“Yes, it wasn’t a bad dream.  It was confusing, but not bad.”

“Tell me.  In bed.” He takes her hand and leads her there, where she kneels on top of it with him.

He makes a decision, somehow, through the sleep fog in his head.

He undoes one or two of those tiny buttons at the top of her smart pyjamas and slips a hand underneath the cotton to cup and caress her breast as he kisses her.  Is it because they are both still half asleep, or is something else making this feel like a dream as well? Not another bloody nightmare, but there is a languid, calmness to their movements this time.  His other hand runs under the pyjama top and dips into the waistband of her bottoms.

“We were together.”

“Ah, so it _was_ a bad dream.”

She smiles wryly at him.  A smile that changes into a look of expectation as his fingers dip into the top of her knickers, her mouth falling open a little.

“We were in my hunting grounds again. In my tent.  And you were doing this.  More than this.”

His fingers find her, and she gasps, closing her eyes. “That.  You were doing that…”  He stops and her eyes open again, capturing his. “It wasn’t just a dream was it, Sandor?”

Sandor shakes his head, his head which is too full of questions for him to speak, wanting to know what she remembers of his night with the wolf girl.

“I remember that feeling, over and over again.  We didn’t have sex.  Not like we did a few days ago.  But you made me come.  With your hands and your mouth.”  His hands start moving again and she smiles.  But just as quickly, it’s gone as she realises what she’s been saying.

“I remember you and the wolf girl. In the tent. What you did to her.” 

“To you.”

“No.” She’s the one shaking her head now, her hair tumbling as she does.  “I wasn’t there.  But I’m here now.”

He stops, moving away from her, lying back heavily against the headboard of the bed. “I can’t do this. Arrangement’s off.” He says, his body already cursing him for it.

“You want the wolf girl more than me?” her head is down, her hair drifting down with it.

“It ain’t that!” He snaps at her.  “I want… you.  All of you.”

She looks up at him in surprise.  “There isn’t an all of me.  There’s me and there’s the wolf.”

“I don’t believe that! And you wouldn’t be remembering things if that were true!  You wouldn’t be smelling Jorah bloody Mormont or that pilot and knowing what was off! You wouldn’t be turning up here at 5.34 bloody am if it wasn’t for the wolf in you!”

“Sandor…” She’s moving closer, crawling up the bed, looking like the wolf girl in the darkness.  But it ain’t her, her eyes don’t flash with silver fire, and when she places a hand on his chest there are no nails scratching him. “That’s not true.”

It’s the girl kissing him.  The human girl.  “You’re crude.”

“Sansa-”

“Listen.  You’re crude. And you drink too much.  And you annoy me like no one has ever done before.  But I think about you.  A lot.  More than I should.  I was thinking about you when Jorah took me to lunch.  I asked about you.  I was thinking about you when Robert offered to look over the Beetle-”

Sandor grunted dismissively then.  Yesterday, she’d stood with the black haired boy as he’d stuck his head into the VW Beetle’s engine like he had with the clock.  Sandor had heard them talking, light heartedly chatting.  Him telling her about his home in Canada.  Her telling him lies about her past.  Both of them on the driveway, but still too damn near the French doors to his room as he was going back and forth by e-mail with his new agent about some deals for his pictures.  Of course, then he’d been leaning against the doorframe, hidden by the flowery bloody curtains as Robert had made her smile and fucking laugh.  And she’d been thinking about _him_ then, _him_? Sandor?

“And it’s me thinking about you.  I’m sure of it.  The wolf likes you.  But I think I do too.”

“You think you do?”

“Well, you _are_ very annoying.” She smiles to soften the blow.  “Can I lie down with you, for a minute?”

He nods, and she curls herself against him.  And then he knows for certain that she’s wrong.  Because the way she nestles against him, nuzzling against him, is so fucking familiar.  The drift of her fingernails through the hair on his chest is the wolf girl’s need, her gentle want of him.  Because she’s wrong.  Because they are one and the same, whether she wants it to be true or not. 

“Sansa?”

“Hmmmm…?” She sounds sleepy and he almost doesn’t want to do this, he wants to let it lie and let them lie here together until the sun comes up properly.  He wants her to sleep and dream some more of the wolf and the dog together.  But dreams aren’t enough.

“What do I smell like?”

She mumbles. “Sandor. You smell like Sandor.”

“Booze and bars?”

“No.  It’s not things.  It’s more abstract than that. More instinctive.” And she still thinks that she’s not the wolf!

“Tell me.”

“Safe…” It’s the only word that comes out before her breath evens out and she’s asleep, curled about him.  He watches her in the dark, the soft movement of her shoulders as she breathes against him, the slight flickering of her eyes as she starts to dream.  Time passes and he dozes but he wakes before her, and with nothing else to do while lying under her he reaches carefully for his book from the bedside table.  Another of those knights and swords books, but one he’d ordered online rather than have to visit the library.  But maybe he’ll get the next one from her.

He’s reading when she starts moving more in her sleep, her eyelids moving as her eyes dart about.  She moans a little, but it sounds like a pleased sound, and he hopes she’s dreaming about them.  Her eyes flutter open as he looks down at her and for a brief second, a shadow of a moment, they flash silver.  And he freezes, barely breathing as they close again, and open as that stunning shade of blue.  She smiles and stretches.

“Reading my recommendation?” She sighs sleepily.

“Uh, no… the next one.”  She smiles, and he thinks about how many smiles he’s had from her since she appeared at his door at the arse crack of morning. “Turns out I like swords and all that shit.  Thought it was just guns but… maybe I’ll get myself one, eh?”

She laughs lightly.  “Can I lie here for a little bit longer?”

“Of course.” He turns a page as she wiggles about on him, getting comfortable.  And its waking up other parts of him.

“But… why did you ask what you smell of?”

“I thought maybe I should start showering before I go to bed.  In case I have any more extremely early morning visits.”

“You smell fine.  Better than Robert.  Why do men do that? Douse themselves in all that chemical yuck?”

“Yuck?” he asks. It’s such an un-librarian word that he could only have been more surprised if she’d said ‘shit’ or ‘crap’.

“Yes, he’s nice.  But he smells yuck.”

“Nice, eh?”

“Not like that.” She sits up a little and looks at him, the slight crumples in her pyjamas from being squashed against him, falling out.  Her face is inches from his and he’s suddenly very aware of his scars.  Most of the time he’s with her, with the wolf girl, he forgets because she doesn’t care.  But now Sansa is staring.

“Will you tell me about them one day? And the tattoo?”

“One day, promise.”

But then his mind is already working overtime.  Something she said then caught his attention.  Robert.  He smells yuck.  No, Robert fucking _stinks_ of aftershave.  And Sandor had thought that it was just some wannabe lothario’s tactic for getting ladies. But now he wonders if it’s some other tactic entirely.

“What are you doing today?” He asks her.

“I’m at the library today.” She glances at the clock. “Oh my! I need to go and shower and get dressed and-”

“Can I take you to lunch?  Just Bill’s Diner.  Nothing fancy like Jorah would take you to….”

“Like a… date?” She looks deeply into his eyes and he’s lost.

“Yes.”

She nods, smiling shyly before crawling off of the bed and going to the door.

“Watch out for Old Nan!”

“Oh, don’t worry, she won’t see me.  She stays up all night watching romance films and then sleeps in until about ten.  You should see her library borrowing history, Mills and Boon and all sorts.”

She starts to turn the handle to the door, and the urge to ask her to stay again, to get back into bed and throw off her day of work is fucking strong.  But he has something he needs to do, someone he needs to talk to pretty fucking soon. 

“Sandor.”

“Yes?”

“Nothing. I’m just trying it out a bit more.”

And then she’s gone, taking his breath with her.

***

The twat’s big, but he’s bigger, and he has him up against the exposed brick wall of the garage before he can finish his cheery ‘Hello Mr Clegane’.

“Who _are_ you?!”

He’s struggling, and those muscles aren’t entirely for show, but Sandor’s pissed, and anger has always made him stronger.  Sharper.

“I told you, my name’s Robert-”

“Don’t believe you, boy!” There’s a wrench nearby and Sandor gets it with one hand while holding him with the other.  “You fucking stink, and I think I know what that means.”

The boy’s face changes, his attempt at maintaining his false identity dropping finally, and with it his false accent.  “Balls.  She’s going to kill me!” He sounds British. What the actual fuck?! _Another_ one?!

“Sansa?” Frowns Sandor.

“Not her. Let me down and I’ll explain.”

He drops him, but keeps the wrench. “Get talking.  First off tell me why you’re trying to hide how you smell?!”

“She can’t recognise me.  If she does then she’ll know that we’ve been watching her.”

“‘We’?”

“We take shifts.  I got this winter.  Before me there was someone else from the pack.”

“Her family? They know where she is?!”

“They’ve always known.  But they keep their distance.”

“That’s fucking cruel!” He growls, the rage building in him like a fire.

“It’s not like that!  They watch over her.  But she doesn’t want to see them!”

“And now it’s you.  Are you one of them too, another werewolf?”

“‘Werewolf’?” he frowns. “She calls herself that?”

“‘Wolf’, whatever.  Are you one too? Is that why you’re hiding your scent?”

“No.  I’m just a human, like you.  But my mate… her sister, she’s one.  And all their brothers.”  He sighs, “It should really be Arya telling you all this, she knows more about their histories than I do.”

“Your ‘mate’?”

“She chose me.  Like I think Sansa’s wolf has chosen you? “

“It were mutual.” He growls.

‘Robert’ holds up his hands.  “Just like us.  It just took me longer to realise I wanted her than it did her.  She’s always known what she wants.”

“You’re the boy.  The one play fighting with Sansa’s little sister when her boyfriend attacked her.”

He nods. “Gendry. Gendry Waters.  My mum was bringing me up on her own in a rented house the Starks owned, on their land.  They kind of adopted me when I was small.  Sansa knew me, but it’s been so bloody long since she last saw me, and I’m not the short arse I used to be any more so the pack thought she might not recognise me.  But scent memory is far stronger than normal memory…”

“Stark?” 

“Sansa Stark.  Not Poole.  Jeyne Poole was another friend from before she ran away.”

Sansa Stark.  It felt right, more right than Sansa Poole ever had.

“Sansa left because of what happened with Joffrey, her boyfriend.  Her family tried to make her see that it wasn’t her fault, told her about their histories. She was even around still when they found all these bones in the freak’s back garden.  Cats, dogs… local animals that had all gone missing.  She saved Arya’s life, I _know_ it.  Saved mine too probably, if Joffrey had thought about clearing up after killing her.  But she didn’t see it like that.  Couldn’t see her wolf as a part of her if it was a killer.”

Sandor put the wrench down.  “They’re all wolves?”

“Not her father.  It skips some Starks.  And her mother married into the family of course.  Her older brothers got their wolves just before her, Arya and the two younger brothers just after.  But Sansa didn’t know it was going to happen.  They don’t tell the children about it until their first change in case it doesn’t ever happen.  Ned, that’s Sansa’s father, he knew because he was there when his brothers and sister first changed.”

He sighed, a sad look on his face. “Sansa never knew it was going to happen, and then she killed on her first change.  So she blocked it out, refused to change at all until it was forced on her by the moon.   There’s some old magic stuff tied up with that I don’t get, but Arya could explain.  But that second change, when the moon made her; that was when she ran away.  She was only fourteen, and they just wanted to help her, but she was too scared of the wolf.”

Sandor’s head was spinning, but at least he knew now that Gendry wasn’t a threat. “I want to meet her sister.  I want to know how I can help her.”

“Arya doesn’t know how!”

“Even so, I want to talk to her.  What’s she like? What are they all like? You say the moon forced Sansa’s change?  Can they change without the Full Moon then?”

“They’re… right, so, all the stuff you know from films?  That’s ‘werewolves’.  They’re also descendants of the early peoples who knew this kind of magic.  But they don’t know what they are, or they’re like Sansa and they’ve tried to kill their wolf, refusing it until it’s only got a few nights a month to run free.  They’re half crazy.” He backed away at the look on Sandor’s face. “Not crazy… but they aren’t whole.  Arya, the others.  They’re _direwolves_.  It’s an old word from pre-Christian times in Britain, back when the druids talked to the land and the sky.  That’s how Arya says it anyway.  And direwolves change when they want to.”

Something like awe came over his face, and love. “And they’re magnificent. They’re like wild spirits.  But also human.  Arya can be a real pain in the arse-”

“What’s it like being a human among… direwolves?”

“Well, I’m not the only one.  But it’s… family… and its safety.”

Sandor remembered Sansa’s last mumbling words before she fell asleep, ‘safe’.

“You’re part of her pack, aren’t you? You’re mated?”  Gendry backs away again from Sandor’s anger. “I don’t just mean… that.  Sex ain’t enough.  You claimed each other?”

“The wolf and me, aye.”

“Maybe there’s hope for her then.  If she’s got a mate protecting her.”

“What do you mean, ‘hope’?”

Gendry looked grim. “Werewolves don’t tend to live very long.  Sansa’s done well to survive this long, and that’s partly because we all watch out for her.  They… get into trouble pretty easily.  They’re instinct without focus, Ned says, and he knows.  Some get hit by cars in their wolf form.  Some hunt for quieter and quieter places, further and further away from people.  And they die alone.  And some get hunted by people who’ve just watched too many horror movies. Or people who are mad at them for something they did when they were the wolf.”

“I’ll look after her.  Trust me on that, ‘Robert’.  And I’ll keep your secret for now, but get a hold of her little sister for me.” Sandor looked up at a clock on the garage wall, nearly time to meet her at the library. “I’ll see you about, but be very certain that if you’re watching her, then I am bloody well watching you too.”


	11. Chapter 11

As soon as he saw her he knew that he had made a bloody mistake.  The thick tweed skirt to her knees, the soft blue cashmere sweater over the smart, crisp white shirt.  The sheen of perfectly brushed and smoothed red hair like flowing water down her back.  Fuck.  Fuck, he was going to take this impeccable little miss to a bloody _diner_ for lunch?!

Her sweet smile as he entered the library and found her re-shelving books in a corner was not enough to reassure him that she wouldn’t care.  Because for a sickening moment he was reminded of the first smile she’d given him, looking up from the counter at the front of the small library to welcome him.  And he remembered thinking of the false courtesy of it, the shallow, adopted bloody American ‘have a nice day’ of it.  Balls!  He was taking the bloody _librarian_ to a date in a bloody diner!

But before he knew it they were there, the small door chime ringing out as they brought the cold winds in with them, into the bustle and warm of ‘Bill’s’.  It was a little run down, past its best, and worse than Sandor had thought it was when he’d peered into the glowing warmth of it during his occasional trips into town.  When he’d thought better of going in to where all those staring, and mocking, eyes might be.

Sandor assumed that it was man himself at the long counter, stained apron on and a big fucking smile.  For Sansa.

“Sansa!”

“Bill” She smiled warmly. They knew each other?!

“Take your usual booth!” Sandor was surprised at that comment too. But there was an even larger question forming on the man’s face as he looked at Sandor.  Hard to see the uncertainty with the older man's eyepatch, true, but Sandor was used to seeing this hesitation on people’s faces when they caught sight of him.  When they saw his burns.  And what must this old bloke think of the large man marching into his place with the neat little librarian at his side?

A middle aged waitress with middle-age spread came over, smiling warmly at Sansa.  And then she took a bloody seat with them, sliding into the booth next to her!

“I read that book you recommended Sansa!” The woman gushed, gripping her notepad in her hand as she gestured. “You were SO right! Have you read it too?!”

“Not yet… but I read the reviews.” Sansa took off her smart black coat.  She took up such a small space compared to the waitress, and Sandor saw her folding her hands tidily into her lap, making herself even smaller.  But her smile for the waitress was still warm, even when the loud mouth was becoming far too over excited.

“I never knew I was… _co-dependent!_ Never thought of it like that!  You’re a gem Sansa! The usual?”

Sansa nodded, shyly smiling at the woman’s compliment.  Aye, a bloody gem.  Perfectly displayed in her perfect clothes. Sparkling.  But with a ‘usual’ in a bloody crappy diner?!

“And for your… friend?” The waitress looked up at him. Stared at him.

“Black coffee… for now.” He growled and the little busybee buzzed off.  He looked at Sansa as another customer waved and smiled at her, some old logger.  And there were more.  She seemed to know everyone here.

“You like people.” He said it bluntly as he worked it out.

She looked back at him, a half smile on her lips after having waved at another ‘friend’.

“I do.  It took me a long time to realise it though.”

He frowned.  “What’s that mean?”

“When I left home… when I ran away… I tried London first.  Because that’s where I thought you go. Where I thought people went when they wanted to disappear.  But London and werewolves are not a particularly good mix.  They even made a film about it.”

There was a small smile at that joke, but she was speaking in a low voice, just for his ears, her fingers lightly playing with the glass salt and pepper shakers, twisting them onto the edges of their bases.  Nervous.

 “Oh, it didn’t end with blood and gore like in that movie.  But a London alley is not a good place to wake up naked and alone as the sun comes up.  There were people who kept an eye on the street kids… the street girls… not good people. And not a kindly eye.”

His hand was on his thigh, and he found it clenching and unclenching against the thick material of his jeans.

“So I moved further and further out into the wild.  Regent’s park first.  Then Highgate cemetery.  Then Richmond Park with the deer. Then I travelled south.  The New Forest in Hampshire…”

“With the ponies?” He had wondered if that had been a dark joke, or not.

Sansa laughed wryly.  “I never did eat a pony. I found a commune there, people who’d bought up some land near the forest and were trying to live a simpler life.  They fed me… I mean I _lived_ with them!”

“Hemp and tie dye types?”

“I suppose, but they were nice.  Well, mostly.  I was there for almost two years, finding my way out to the woods when I needed to.  The commune’s where I realised I needed to stay near people occasionally.”  Sandor though about what ‘Robert’ had told him about werewolves… how some of them took themselves further and further away from civilisation.  Until they died alone.

Sansa frowned.  “And then this woman turned up at the commune.  Mel. She had some… strange ideas.  I didn’t like the way things were changing.  Then one of the other girls suggested inter-railing around Europe for a while.  France, Switzerland, Italy.  Ygritte was nice, very good company.  And she was happy to let me go off on my own for a while, and then meet up again with me in another new country later on.  So I spent some a few months alone in the Black Forest in Germany.  I even spent a Winter in a Polish monastery!”

He laughed darkly. “How did that work out for you?”

“Not very well in the end.  It was very quiet, peaceful. It was a good place to think. And they were very used to taking in backpackers.  But not werewolves.  One of the brother’s spotted me one night, and thought I was some kind of demon…”

“Probably come to bring them the temptations of the flesh!” His  deep laugh died as she flushed red.  What a fucking idiot!  She didn’t need reminding that she ran about naked two nights out of the month! Or was it that she was remembering…him?

“Exactly!” She sounded confident, but then she tipped the salt shaker too much and it spilled all across the table as the waitress returned with their order.  Between the three of them they cleared it all away, Sansa glowing a brighter red than ever before.  He’d never seen the librarian flustered like this before.  It was charming.  And then he saw her lunch order…

“Pancakes? For lunch?”  He asked, surprised.  She paused in squeezing the lemon that had come with them over her stack.  Lemon juice on pancakes? A hangover from her past life in England?  He passed her a few packets of sugar from the table and she ripped them open quickly, shaking them on the sour mess as well, sweetening it.

“No worse than having just having a black coffee, surely?” She was arch, but not mean.  He pulled open a menu and nodded the waitress over, who of course was still watching them even though she had gone back to the formica counter.

“Bring me the no.4.” She nodded and then was gone again.

“The ‘meat monster’?!” laughed Sansa.

“I’m a carnivore, what can I tell you. We’re not all diabetics in training like you.”

“I like meat.” She blushed.  God! This girl was driving him crazy with the soft redness of her fucking cheeks alone!  He found his fists clenching again, but for different reasons this time. “I eat meat.  Oh god…”

She groaned and shook her head, laughing at herself, her hair fluttering prettily about her ears, destroying that silken waterfall of it, but giving her a little more of the look of wolf girl’s wildness.

“Have you travelled much?  Since Scotland?”  Good attempt at changing the conversation, he gave her credit for it.  But then he just nodded, sipping his coffee. 

“Where?”

He paused, but then gave her what she wanted.  Even if she might not like it. “Iraq, Afghanistan. Iraq again.  Sierra Leone. The Congo. Various African states.  Bosnia” He looked away from her, not wanting to see her reaction.

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Those kinds of places.  And I did those kind of things.” There was a touch of defiance in his voice, the unspoken ‘so what’ underneath his tone.  But he was the one who cared ‘so what’, dreading seeing her disturbed by the truth of him.

“And is that where… your face?” She was near whispering, softly asking what she must have been dying to ask from the beginning. 

“No.  That was from before.”  He was glad that his large plate of cholesterol arrived at that moment.  But as soon as the waitress bustled off again, he was returning to the topic, like a dog can return to a past meal.

“It was… family.  My brother.”

Sansa gasped.  He was so unused to telling this particular fucking grim fairytale that he wasn’t sure what to expect from the listener.  But when her hand moved to lay over his, he felt… comforted.

“You don’t have to say anymore, if you don’t want to.”

“Aint much more to say.  Military family.  Generations of soldiers.  Dad thought he’d carry on the tradition and beat some discipline into us.  My brother took up his mantle when he died.  I got disciplined all right.”

“How old were you?”

“Young.  Too young.  Where’s your family, Sansa?”

It was mean to jump that on her, but he’d opened up for her.

“They’re… they’re back home.” Her eyes were blinking a little faster than normal.  Tears? Were they from his story or from hers? “My father arranges money for me sometimes, wires it to somewhere I can collect it.  But I’m not going home yet.”

“Yet?” He asked, trying to keep a lid on his hope for her.

“I’m still… different.  Different to them.  They don’t understand-”

“Maybe you should try them-”

“I’m sorry about your brother, I truly am.” Back on him again, like they were playing some game of tennis where the fucking balls were concentrations of their pain.

“Fuck him, right?” He laughed darkly, trying to break the mood, and she smiled palely, digging into her pancakes.

“Do you want…?” She asks slowly, and his heart beat wilder as he filled in the end of the sentence for her.  Another visit in the morning? Another try at their botched ‘arrangement’.  Another date? “-to head into the woods again? To find the wolves, or the lynxes perhaps?”

More photos for his hungry agent in New York? Yeah, of course he did.  Another chance to lie under the stars with her? Fuck, of course he did!

“That would be good.  The last ones have been pretty bloody popular.  Especially the one of the bear cub and you.”

She looks confused, and he realises he’s mixed them up, the wolf girl and the librarian. Or is he just hoping to jog her fractured memories? “You… _she_ took me to where the mother bear was with her cub.  She reached out for the little bugger and it made a pretty good picture.”

“Ah, the wolf girl.” She sighs, and he wonders if she feels left out.  And then he thinks about the madness of that. “Well, my change is in a week or so, we could go then?”

“Or before then?”

“With just me?”

“Why not?” He almost has his fucking fingers crossed on the hand below the table.

“If you’re sure…” She smiles shyly.  “This  Sunday?”

He nods and her smile broadens. And after all the coldness of the librarian is like the sun moving into to melt the winter’s hoarfrost away. Then he’s half way to asking her to come back to the guesthouse with him, now.  Halfway to pushing for more than a grease laden lunch in some grotty diner.  Half way to asking her for everything.

But instead he holds his tongue, enjoying the rest of their lunch together before she’s gone, walking down the rain and leaf covered high street, loose red hair swinging as she click clacks her way to the library, and he goes to Bronn’s, like they  both knew he would.

Inside its quiet.  Which suits his quiet mood.  He’s used to being on edge after seeing her.  Used to being rattled and full of burning rages and frustrated needs.  This calmness disturbs him, and he settles on drinking through it.  But Bronn and that fucker ‘Robert’… Gendry… are in his fucking dark booth!

“Good afternoon, Mr Clegane” says Rober- Gendry pleasantly.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, don’t you be starting with that!”

“Yeah, it’s just Sandor. Or ‘twat’.  You choose!” Bronn laughs, drinking his beer.

“What’s this then? A bloody mother’s sewing circle?”

“‘The Concerned Sansa Watchers Association’ more like.” quips Bronn, and Sandor throws a glare at Gendry who shrugs.

Bronn just carries on, that mouth of his flapping again. “Come on mate.  If she’s going to be hanging out with a shit like you, she needs some more stand-up guys watching out for her.  I got the bar and the library covered, and Robert here turns out to live in the same guesthouse as you two.”

“She seems nice.  Maybe she just needs a couple of big brothers on her side.” says Gendry.

“Bronn didn’t exactly have brotherly thoughts towards the girl when he first noticed her!” growls Sandor.

The barman laughs. “True.  She’s a stunner.  And a man would have to be as old as Selmy or as half blind as Bill not to notice-”

“I’ve seen Selmy hanging out at the library.” Points out Gendry.

“So we’ve all been taken with the librarian.  But she seems set on you, the poor deluded girl, so maybe we should make sure you’re treating her right.”

He looks from Bronn to Gendry. “You twats!”

Bronn laughs that smug little laugh of his, while Gendry at least has the wits to look abashed. 

“Come on, you’re off to a flying fucking start with her, aren’t you?” says Bronn.

Sandor growls, he better fucking not be talking about the night he took her home from the bar.  He’s about ready to take the shit outside for a kicking when he carries on.

“First date at Bill’s? That’s classy!” Bronn smiles at his surprise. “Small fucking town, one good looking woman… yeah, everyone knows by now.”

“And have you taken the pilot anywhere nice yet?”

“She liked my bed well enough.” Bronn winks and Gendry groans.  “Go on, pup.  Where you take your lady for your first date? You got one yet, or are you waiting for your first pube to come through?” Bronn smirks at Gendry.

Sandor laughs as the muscled mechanic blushes.

“She came to mine.  Snuck in to my room.”

Sandor laughs, it’s a bloody family trait!

“No, not _that_.  Your first date with her?” Bronn insists.

“The woods… near her home. I suppose.”

“Useless.  Both of you! Women need to be wined, dined… and whatever follows after those two.” He winks.

“Idiot.” Snarls Sandor.

“You’ll see.  When Margaery visits again I got it all planned out.  Two towns over, bit of a drive, but there’s a nice restaurant I know.  Good food.  _Great_ company if I do say so myself!”

Sandor thinks of when he’ll see Sansa again.  Sunday, when they go into the woods with his camera again.  Or maybe he can find a way to see her sooner… in the guesthouse.  In those fucking adorable pyjamas. He’d take a ‘date’ like this morning again in a heartbeat.  That glorious red hair spread over his pillow as she murmurs in her sleep, stretching and opening her eyes for him.  Silver eyes. 

He’d almost forgotten the flash of the wolf in the girl this morning! He’ll corner Gendry alone at some point later and tell him about that.  ‘The Concerned Sansa Watchers Association’!  Bloody hell, if that wasn’t just the fucking truth!

“Shut up and get us some more beers Bronn!” he snaps instead.

“You going to pay your tab any time soon, Sandy?”

“I’ll arm wrestle you to clear it…” says Sandor, threateningly.

Bronn looks tempted, but Gendry slowly shakes his head at him. Smart boy, smarter than Bronn.

“Just pay it at some point, okay, mate!”  He goes over to the bar, and Sandor is left with his last word echoing in his ears as Gendry laughs.  Too many fucking ‘mates’ around here, he thinks angrily.  But… he wants Sansa as his ‘mate’...  And what was it that she’d said? About realising that she needed people?  Fuck that. 

He drinks down the beer that Bronn brings him, ignoring the inane chatter of the two other ‘Sansa Watchers’.  Fuck that and fuck _‘people’_.  But it’s a half-hearted curse and he knows it.


	12. Chapter 12

“What can hurt her?”

He sees the sudden wariness clearly in the boy’s face, even though the cold light from the three quarter moon ain’t showing much as they drunkenly meander their way up the hill. Until then his face had been as wide and open as a loon’s, as for the past half hour he’s wittered on about Sansa’s sister this and Sansa’s sister that.  Arya’s fierce, she’s beautiful, she’s clever and she can fucking well fly! Well, maybe not the last one.  But Gendry hasn’t fucking shut up about his love. 

Given how much he’s drunk too, maybe Sandor would be also singing a song of Sansa if he weren’t… himself.  

But as soon as he asks the question the boy clams up, that caution writ large on his face, dashing away the beer and vodka shot sodden happiness.

“Come on you daft fucker, I don’t want to _hurt_ her! I’m her fucking mate.  Well, the wolf’s mate anyways.  I just want to know what I’m protecting her from.”

Gendry stops his weaving steps and hangs his head. Sandor had been bloody pleased that the boy had been able to make his own way back up the hill to the guesthouse once they left Bronn’s.  The amount Gendry’s put away this evening he was worried he was going to have to carry the daft sod back there.  Not that he’s had any fucking less.  Though, Bronn and Gendry had managed to do some work between them. Gendry buggering off to the garage in the afternoon, and Bronn serving at the bar in the evening.  All Sandor’s done is work his way through the money from his latest fucking sale!

“Well, is it silver bulletsh and all that shit?” Sandor snaps and slurs, pushing Gendry to the edge of the road, trying to get him to focus as he shakes his own head.

“Kind of… sort of… shit!  You should be talking to Arya!  But she won’t come into town.  She thinks Sansa’ll catch her scent.  But she’s much better at this stuff.  She-”

“I know, I know, she’s fucking perfect!”

“Near enough” smiles Gendry again, and Sandor’s fists are clenching.   This is fucking important!

“Silver.  Bullets.” He barks the words out of gritted teeth as though they are bullets themselves.

“Yesh” Gendry slurs.  “Silver.  But not exactly how everyone thinks.  Arya showed me once.  She got this silver necklace and made me touch it.  Fine, nothing but a piece of metal, right?  Then she touches it and its cold.  Like really cold.  Made her fingers blue, and there was… frost on her skin.  It’s cold to them, really cold.  And it doesn’t just freeze their skin.  It freezes _them_.  A necklace or a chain can trap them in one form… human, wolf… or between.  Make them slaves.  She says it’s a power… like the moon for werewolvesh, but I don’t understand that stuff… magic and curses and druids…” his voice fades away.

Then Gendry’s swaying. But Sandor grabs him and holds him steady.  “‘Between’? That’s not just Sansa, that’s something that they all do?!”

“Oh yeah!  Arya’s always messing about going from shape to shape… aaaallllllll the time.  But when she’s feeling… frisky, then she tends to go ‘between’. Ned says- Not that we talk about her ‘frisky’ times!  But Ned says that the wolf is all needsh.  The between shape is all wantsh.  And the human is… um, I think he said ‘control’… or was is ‘order’?  I’m kind of tired. Don’t ‘member.”

Sandor’s over the fucking moon, and if he was a tiny bit drunker he’d be howling at it too!  She’ll still be the wolf girl sometimes! But he’s trying to stay on track, shaking his head to clear the booze from it, rubbing at both sides of his face.

“You said werewolves die early.  On their own?”

“Alone.  Or in accidents.  Forest fires, floods, avalanshes in the wild, stuff like that.”  He looks uncomfortable for a moment and then carries on, the booze making his tongue run wild, even if it’s more than a bit bloody clumsy. “Ned had two brothers and a sister.  They all went… werewolf.  And now they’re gone”

Sandor flinches.  They were all like Sansa.  He has to stop it happening to her! “Tell me!”

Gendry’s eyes dart about as though this ‘Ned’ is about to appear from the shadows between the trees at the side of the road and gut him for telling his stories. 

“The oldest brother went mad when their sister died in an accident.  A car hit her out in the middle of nowhere.” Gendry paused, swallowed and carried on, the sadness apparent in him, even though it weren’t his bloody family. But then… Sandor supposed it was his ‘pack’ though.  Was that what this was then, a new family for him too?  He brushed the unsettling thought aside as Gendry got his thoughts in row.  “She was carrying a baby.  Brandon managed to save it, but he had to rip her apart to get at it.  And then he killed the driver who was pinned in the car.  _Then_ the driver’s family hunted him down.  Humans usually find out about werewolves… find out that they’re _real_ …. Because they kill someone they love.  You’re fucking unusual.  Well, Arya’s wolf chose me too, but she ain’t a werewolf.” Gendry babbles.

“I don’t think Sansa is either.  Not completely.  Not anymore.” He remembers her dream of their night in the tent.  She was changing, he _knew_ it!

“Hope you’re right, mate, I really do.”

“And the other brother?”

“He went into the wild after Lyanna died.  He hasn’t been seen since.  The pack thinks he died in a rockslide or something.  Or starved.  They don’t talk about Benjen much anymore.  Ned spent a long while looking for him.  Trail’s gone cold.  But that’s what they think might happen to Sansa if they don’t watch over her all the time.  If they don’t send me or the other humans in the pack to where she is.”

“How many others are there, like you?”

He concentrates through the drunken haze.  “Shansa’s mother, Cat, of course.  Ned too, technically. Robb’s mate.  Jon’s.  A few close friends of Bran’s and Rickon’s who might turn out to be their future mates. They’re just humansh who saw their friend change for the first time and decided to help them instead of panicking or freaking out.”

Gendry’s wobbling, and then Sandor does give him a helping hand, huffing a bit at the weight of the boy as he supports him. Jesus, it’s like carrying a bloody cow!

“Come on, let’s get you back to your room.” He nods up the hill towards the lights of the gingerbread house.

“She’s done okay.   I think.”

“Done okay?”

“Picking you ash a mate.”

“An old drunk near twice her age?” Sandor laughs darkly. “Yeah, she’s done fucking well.”

“You have it.  The thing that all us humans in the pack have got.  I dunno what you’d call it.  It’s like a fierce love that makes us good guardians for our mates.  It’s a rage but it’s also like the kind of fire you use to make a metal stronger.  We make’em stronger.”  The boy’s head is hanging low as Sandor near carries him.

“Don’t you dare cry on me you daft little shit!” But Sandor can’t help the smile on his lips.

Then they’re at the door to the guesthouse and Sandor has to negotiate getting inside with the near unconscious, and fucking large, boy under his wing.  Of course, bloody Old Nan is there, a smirk on her face and curlers in her hair, as Sandor near drags him up the wooden staircase to his room. 

“Nothing to see here, you daft old biddy!  I aint taking him upstairs for a rogering so you can stop staring!!”

Old Nan tuts and then scampers back into her room.

Gendry wakes up enough to get his key out… eventually.  And even then he tries many, many times to fit it into the lock, slipping it past the hole again and again.

“I hope that ain’t how fucking it goes with your woman! Give it here!” Sandor grabs the key from his loose fingers and then gets them in.  He flings Gendry onto the flowery bed, the twin to Sansa’s, shucks his boots off and leaves him a glass of water on the ornate oak nightstand from the bathroom.  Its more care than he’s got most nights he’s come home this drunk, so he thinks the boy’ll be alright. 

Then he trudges back to his ground floor room, head spinning with everything the boy’s told him, and from the alcohol in his veins.  That doesn’t stop him hesitating by his door before he puts his own key in.  Something’s wrong.

There’s a draft coming softly whispering through the doorframe, sneaking between the door and the lintel.  He readies himself, old instincts kicking in.  Weapons? Gun in the wardrobe, locked up.  Lamp, maybe, if he can get to the bed quick enough.  Tripod for his camera? Resting against the wall, not far from the door, should do some good damage. 

He’s in quickly, hand on the tripod and kneeling onto one knee, wobbling, as he ducks from any shot coming his way.  Muscles protest, it’s been too long.  But they obey.

Even in the dark of the room his eyes rapidly pick out the highlights.  A small broken pane in the French doors, right by the handle, door left open.  Clothes ripped from drawers and piled on the bed.  Woman sleeping in the bed, curled up in the middle of them, clasping t-shirts to her.  Naked.

 “Who’s been sleeping in my bed?” He grumbles with a dark smirk.  No, that aint right. He’s no bear.  And she’s no Goldilocks.  ‘Redilocks’ don’t work neither.

“Sansa?”

She stirs.  But its silver eyes that look back at him inquisitively. The wolf girl!

“Didn’t expect you, little… wolf.”  He peers at the dark night outside the broken glass paned door.  Yes, still a just fattening three quarter moon out there above the pine trees. But the boy said that direwolves could change when they wanted to.  But still, he doubted this change was intentional.  There was no sign of Sansa in the soft wide eyes of the wolf girl as she sat up on the bed among his things and stared at him.  So she was changing at new times, but against her will still.  That might be a good sign.  He hoped.

He quickly moved to the French doors and stuffed some of his clothes from the floor into the broken pane and shut the door.  Turning back to the bed he saw the expectation on her face.  He sighed deeply.

“Might be that Sansa wants to wait now, until after a few more proper ‘dates’, little wolf.”

A low growl in response and he laughs.  “I agree with you, she’s wrong.  And I’m yours, aint I?”

The wolf girl slowly lies down again, curling her back under his eyes and rubbing herself against the clothes she’s taken out.  His clothes, his scent.  And then he’s quickly taking off the clothes he’s actually wearing and lying himself down behind her, shaping himself around her lithe body, pulling gently at her thigh to hold her against him like a curving bow.

Her hair is over all him, and drink or no drink his body is trying to respond.  Now he fucking wishes he hadn’t put so much away.  But how could he have known she’d be here? Perhaps… perhaps he should cut back a bit?  Can’t be a guardian, a protector, or a fucking ‘Concerned Sansa Watcher’ if he’s not giving this his bloody ‘A’ game.  He thinks about the accidental training he’s been doing since she came into his life, the running, the boxing.  He could up that, couldn’t he? He’s got plenty of spare time for it.  If he stops drinking away the hours at Bronn’s or on his own…

She’s wriggling against him, entirely intentionally, and he wishes he could respond the way she wants.  That’s done it.  No more drinking away his life.  Not with a mate depending on him.  Not with a mate wanting him to…

He ambles his hand further over her thigh, grasping the inner curve of it and pulling her leg gently back and over his own so they she’s exposed for him.  Fingers find her and he’s excited by her wetness… for him.  What did the boy say, that his mate tends to take this form when she’s feeling ‘frisky’?

“Was that it, Sansa? Were you thinking of me when the wolf came for you before the Full Moon was here?  Were you doing this to yourself… maybe?”

He rubs at her in slow circles, making the wolf girl croon for him.  Dipping fingertips into her he’s amazed by the heat of her, tightening about him as he makes her rock her hips with the motion of his hand as he pushes deeper into her.  He slides the other hand under her, pulling her into a bear hug from behind that means he can cup and play with her left breast.  But then he removes it, makes it join the other as he lies against her and works both hands on her.  Fingers deep in her, the other hand’s fingers skimming over the hardness of her clit until she bucks and comes for him, moaning so beautifully.

She turns as soon as her breath returns, flipping herself gracefully and pushing him back quickly so she can lie across him. “Yours?” she near growls at him.

“Of course you are-“

She grasps him between his legs and repeats the word as he jumps at her sudden touch. “Yours!”

“My turn?” He laughs darkly.  He wishes he could, but  nothing is doing down there.  And then the Sandor of now hates the Sandor of then, the Sandor who sat at Bronn’s near all day and turned him into this booze addled lump.  The fucker!

“Tomorrow morning little wolf.  Tomorrow Sansa.  _Remember_. Tomorrow.” Tiredness and the booze is catching up with him, and the wolf girl lays kisses on his ruined face as his eyes start to close.

***

“Oh no! Oh NO!”

He wakes with a start and does his mental count of weapons again as he struggles against the pile of clothes on the bed.  Tripod? Too far away.  Lamp? He grabs for it, but pauses before he gets to it as he sees Sansa kneeling above him, clasping his dingy old Iron Maiden t-shirt to her chest and a pair of his jockey shorts to her crotch.

He lies back down, laying an arm across his eyes as the sun beats at his head. “Just so you know, that’s not how I like to be woken up…”

“This didn’t happen! This did not happen!”

He squints at her. “It’s not the first time love, don’t panic-” He flinches a bit at his own use of the ‘L’ word, but she doesn’t seem to be fixating on it. Instead he sees her change.  Oh, there’s no bloody magic or silver glowing lights about her, but she’s changing shape none-the-fucking-less!

“My change usually occurs around the full moon, Mist- _Sandor_.  The ‘between’ shape on the days either side of the fullest moon, and the full wolf on the day of it.  This is highly unusual” She is talking in very clipped way, as though she’s narrating a bloody nature documentary about werewolves.  The fucking librarian is back!

“Don’t you fucking do that!” He snaps at her, sitting up quickly.  “Don’t you fucking retreat from me because something happened you couldn’t control!”

“It hasn’t happened to me since I was fourteen!” She near wails.  “I thought I was over this!”

“Things change.” He remembers now, finding her in the nest of his clothes, and wondering if she’d been thinking of him when her change came. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

She blushes and stutters. “I was just having a bath.”

He raises an eyebrow, the one that’s still there.  “Was that all you were doing?”

“Yes!” She sounds haughty and looks scandalised, but that flush of red is racing across her skin.  And he wants to kiss every last blushing part of it.

“I got a theory that you might have called the wolf.”

“But… but I don’t want her!”

“Aye, so you say.  But I’m thinking that maybe you want me.  And she wants me too.” The memory of the little wolf girl touching him returns and now he’s bloody well responding.  And Sansa’s eyes have to be bloody drifting that way as it starts to happen, don’t they?  She flushes even more as she sees him hardening for her.

“I should go-”

“Why?” His voice rumbles deep in his chest.

“Because… because… because we’ve only been on one date!”

“I knew you’d bloody be thinking like that! But does it really matter? The wolf claimed me, I claimed her right back.  I want you too.  Do we have to ponce about pretending there’s any fucking dating ‘rules’ that apply to us?” He’s rock hard and the girl had better stay, or get going quickly so he can take things into his own hand.

She pauses, looking him straight in the eyes.  Then she’s moving fast, kissing him, a soft hand curling about the non-scarred part of his face as she drops his t-shirt back to the bed.  The other hand gives up his shorts as he pushes them away from the join of her thighs. 

“Sansa.” He groans as she moves closer, letting him run his hands over her back and into the silken red mess of her morning hair as her breasts press against him.

“Do you remember?” He whispers, and he’d be keeping his fingers crossed if he could.

“Remember what?” She sighs into his mouth.

“It doesn’t matter.” But then she’s pulled away from him and is frowning.  “Honestly, it doesn’t matte-”

“Wait… I think…” Her eyes widen, flashing silver for a second. He’s fucking certain of it!

And then she lays down next to him, lying on her side with that perfect fucking arse and curve of her hips waiting for him as he takes his place behind her again.   

So he does it again, slides his hand over her thigh and pulls it back and over his own.  And this time his cock is pushing against the soft swell of her arse as he strokes her, running fingertips through her damp curls and into her slickness.

“Sandor” and it’s her time to groan.  “Can we…?”

Its somehow easier this time, the awkwardness seems to have vanished.  He rolls back quickly to the bedside table and gets a condom, and he’s put it on and is already pushing into her before he really knows what he’s doing.

“Like this? Or we can move.” He whispers into her ear, her hair surrounding his face like a sweet smelling cloud as he feels himself slipping in her wetness.  It’s a smell made of human chemicals; shampoo, soap, a rich conditioner.  But it’s also her, there’s a subtle under scent that’s like… home.

“Like this.”  But she whimpers a little as he makes his way slowly into her.  They’ve only done this once before, and doing it like this, from behind… perhaps he should have moved…

But then she’s pushing back against him, helping him as he buries himself in her.  She’s moaning now, not whimpering, as he finds her beneath his fingers as well, circling her clit again as his rhythm settles.

He’s still holding back, but the feeling of being within her like this, her arse against him as he moves slowly back and forth, is getting him closer to the edge faster than he thought it would.

He won’t last long.   But maybe they can have more time.  “Stay here.  Stay here today.  Bunk off of work. Spend the day with me… fucking.” He growls into her ear.

She pauses, and he withdraws near completely before pushing quickly back into her to make her gasp loudly. “Yes!”

“Yes to staying?” he smiles against her ear.

“Yes to anything!”

He moves quickly.  He’s strong enough to pull her up in one movement, strong enough to get her on her hands and knees among his clothes.  And then he mounts her like that, like dogs do it.  Or wolves.

The librarian would protest. Loudly and with long complicated words.

But Sansa isn’t the librarian at this very moment, she’s changed again.  Because the librarian wouldn’t be making the noises that she’s making as he rocks into her from behind.  She wouldn’t be coming so fucking _hard_ , her hair over her sleek back like the wolf girl’s as he strokes her soft skin there and holds her by her hips as she shudders.  She wouldn’t then be looking back so fucking wolfishly, blue eyes gleaming as he also finishes, a final thrust shaking her and him as he gives himself up to her.

They collapse together onto the muddle of clothes, and he’s dragging her close immediately, checking that she’s okay, looking over her flushed skin, her sparkling eyes, her wryly smiling mouth.

“Better?” He asks, his heart in his chest beating with the exertion, but also with concern.

“‘Aye’.” She breathes, and then kisses him, fingertips moving his hair from his face.

“So you’ll stay?”

“I’ll stay.  I’ll call in sick at the library. So… do we just do ‘this’ all day?”

“We do whatever you want.”

“This and… you could read again.  I liked listening to the pages turning.”

He smiles, remembering her adorable pink pyjamas and the drowsy sleepiness of her. “I’d like that.”

“We’ll need food.” She says, the practical side emerging for a second, but softened by the morning mess of her.  She looks thoroughly blissed out.  She looks thoroughly fucked.  But also like a bloody sweet faced angel at the same time.  The wolf and the girl all in one, whether she believes it or not.

“We’ll just live on love.” He mumbles as the hangover catches up with him. Shit, there’s that word again! He looks into her eyes.  What is she thinking now?!

But she just laughs, nestling closer.  “I didn’t know that you’d be like this.”

 “What do you mean?”

“When I first met you.  You were so angry. I didn’t know you could be like this as well.”

He frowns.  _She_ had been a cold bitch in the beginning.  He had been… he was…

“The first thing you did was curse at me, because I called you ‘sir’.” She mumbles against his lips.

That’s not right.  Is it? He remembers being in a foul mood because he’s had to go into town and be stared at. He remembers her false courtesies.  But what had she actually done wrong? Hadn’t she just greeted him with a smile?  A bloody sweet smile at that. Fuck!

“I wasn’t very nice, was I?”

“Not really. But there was still _something_ about you”

Gendry, the drunk twat, had called this thing that the humans of the pack had a ‘fierce love’.  Well he had the first part down pat; that was for fucking sure.  The second part… had it been love at first sight for them?  He didn’t much believe in that, thought it was something made up for the films and romance books he had never been interested in. But that night the wolf had come to him for the first time.  Had he chosen her then too, as much as her wolf had chosen him?

“I’ll be nice to you now, Sansa. I’ll be very nice.” He strokes her hair, that red that makes him weak.  “I’ll be so nice you won’t want to ever leave this room.”

She smiles and kisses him, nipping at his twisted lip with her human teeth. 

“Why don’t you get showered while I pop back up to my room and find my phone to call in sick?”  She looks about at the mess of clothes around them. “It wouldn’t hurt to tidy your room once in a while as well- oh!”

She pales suddenly. “That was me! I _remember_!”

“Right bloody mess you made too!” But secretly he’s pleased even if Sansa looks disconcerted.  “Take a few bits to wear as you dash upstairs.  Old Nan was walking the halls last night when I got in with Gend- Robert.” He watches her eyes to see if she heard him slip, but she’s too busy with dawning memories and with finding a t-shirt to wear as a dress.

She slips from the bed, padding quickly to his door, the black t-shirt dress covering to her mid-thigh but only making her all the more fucking delicious to look at.

“I’ll leave the door unlocked, Sansa. And the door to the bathroom too.”

“You want me to join you in there?!”

He nods, taking his turn to look her over with that wolfish glance. 

But it’s her eyes that flash silver as she smiles and then darts out through his door.


	13. Chapter 13

“Are you sure about this?”

He’s brought out of his counting by the words.  The same bloody words he’d said to her this morning as she’d asked that he walk her into town.  He’d wanted to of course.  Wanted to spend as much time with her as he could before she went back to the library.  Wanted to walk with the girl in the cute knitted hat that she’d suddenly decided she needed, for appearance's sake, dashing back up the stairs to her room to get when they’d first opened the front door onto a crisp frosty morning.  He’d even wanted to hold her hot little hand from their first steps together, even though she was the one who had finally, cautiously, suggested it.  God, she made him soft!

“Are you sure about this?” He’d asked as she’d smiled up at him, her coat collar theatrically pulled up against the cold, plumes of her hot breath drifting around them.

“They saw us yesterday when we went to Bill’s for lunch… and for dinner. Does it matter if they see us now?  Holding hands?”

“That was bloody different!  That wasn’t first thing in the bloody morning when there’ll be no doubt that we spent the night together!”

“And the whole day before it.” She whispered conspiratorially, smiling.

As though he was going to bloody well forget their day off in a hurry?! 

She’d been right to be practical, they had needed food after their exertions, and Bill’s was the closest and easiest choice.  But he wondered if they hadn’t in part got dressed and gone out just for the excuse to undress each other again, exploring bodies that were quickly becoming familiar but which were still so interesting to slowly reveal.

They’d had whole day and night of feasting on each other. 

She was young and enthusiastic.  She’d also, _of course_ , read a lot of the theory in this book or that magazine, and she knew a lot about positions with bloody stupid names he’d never heard of before. He was older, _of course_.  But even so, he’d finally admitted to her, not really that experienced.  He’d had women, of course.  But he’d had them quickly, or drunkenly.  Or both.  They’d had a lot to learn. Together.

He’d also never been with a woman for longer than a quick shag, never been with a woman who wanted him again and again… and again.  He was pleased to find that werewolves seemed to have a lot of stamina.  And not just that.  She’d showed him, oddly apologetically, the faint pink lines on her hand, already near fully healed.  There’d be no scars from her break in to his room.  Then he suddenly understood her strange sadness; his scars would never heal like hers did.  He’d kissed away her apology, and then he’d had her again in one of the positions with a fucking ridiculous name.

“Are you sure about this?” He’d asked her.  And not just about walking in to town.  All her cries of ‘yes’ and her pleased moans were vanishing dreams in the cold morning light as they walked down the hill towards town.  Hand in hand or not.  It might be different when they were seen.  Might be different when the gossipers started laughing at the scarred old soldier and the pretty librarian.  Might be that the wolf was wrong all along…

“Are you sure about this?” asked Bronn as Sandor counted out the notes. “It won’t stick if you’re just doing it for her.  Trust me, I’ve been a barman a long fucking time.  Seen men trying to go on the wagon for this woman or that-”

“Take my fucking money Bronn and shut up!” He slides over the pile of notes, remembering her standing up on her tiptoes by the side of the road into town and kissing him softly, sweetly.  So pure and sweet even after everything that they’ve done with each other, to each other.

“I am completely sure, Sandor.” she had said.

And he echoes, and twists, her words back to Bronn. “I’m completely fucking sure.”

“Well, I’ll miss you.” Sandor watches Bronn put a line through his name on the ledger and the painfully large number that follows it.

“Don’t be soft.  And I’ll still be around.  I’ll be coming in everyday to use your bloody ‘gym’.”

“She really does have you wrapped around her pretty little finger doesn’t she?”

He ignores the sarcasm, Bronn’s just as fucking whipped for his pilot. Besides, it’s not entirely a joke after their day off together.  He’s got half a mind to go to the library now and carry her away on his shoulder, ignoring her loud protests which’ll became loud moans and gasps once he’s done with her.

“You got any weights to go with the punchbag?”

“I got crates.  And there’s always barrels that need lifting and changing… you’d be more use for that than Dontos!”

Bronn looks him over, takes in his running gear.  “Running too? You in love or thinking about re-joining the fucking army?”

Sandor sneers dismissively at the word ‘love’.  But the other word, ‘army’, doesn’t make him flinch like it might have done once.  He’s told her everything now.  He’s lain with her in the exhausted mess of the two of them, legs entwined, their lips bruised, their skin shining with sweat.  And he’s told her about his training, about what he was expected to do with it.  Told her about the boy that played football in the dust and sand with them just by their barracks.  Some son of a simple local man who carved up meat for a living.  Good lad.  Just a good lad like the good lads in the camp, some of whom weren’t much older than him.  A good lad who had his head turned by promises and started taking their secrets to a man who didn’t care about the fate of his network of ‘little birds’.  A fat bald man in a robe who didn’t care at all when the boy was found out, when he was seen running to his boss with some pretty fucking important information.  A fucker who didn’t care when the dog was sent to hunt the boy down.  And the boy ran.  But not fast enough.

She cries.  For the boy.  Even for him. 

Then he tells her about getting out.  About breaking hundreds of years of Clegane fucking tradition to go down civvy street, to ‘wash out’ as he thinks they’d say in the States. He tells her about giving it all up for a place at a bar, any bar, where he can drink away the memory of hunting the boy. And then all she does is hold him, and that’s more than he’s ever expected from another person.

But if Bronn thinks all this, the running, the boxing, the weights, is for some army, some upcoming battle, then he’s not entirely wrong.  Though, this time he’s enlisting by his own fucking choice, not his father’s.  He’s choosing her, Sansa, as much as he’s chosen the wolf.  And both of them need him to be ready for whatever might happen; he knows it in his gut.

He’s about to snap back at Bronn, make some snide joke about how Bronn needs to join him on a run or two, when the man gasps and smiles, just seconds before a brunette rocket crashes into the barman.

“Margie!”  Bronn picks up the girl and twirls her around. “What are you doing back?!”

“Don’t say you aren’t pleased to see me!” She pouts, and Bronn kisses it away.  Sandor wishes he was still drinking.

“Of course I am! But isn’t your next delivery in a couple of weeks?”

“My boss got a private hire.  Human cargo this time, four tourists.  Can you even imagine?! Tourists wanting to come to Bearpaw?!”

“Maybe they’ve heard about the wondrous hospitality of ‘Bronn’s’.  In fact, since you’re here, maybe I can show you some of that hospitality now… upstairs?” Bronn smirks at the pilot.  And even thought Sandor knows he’d be the same if Sansa was here right now, he can’t help but groan.  Margaery snaps a look at him and then smiles darkly.

“You and the librarian, eh? So how’s that going Sandor?!”

“Bronn’s got a big fucking mouth!”

“She’s nice; and she did me a big favour talking me into something good I was overthinking.” Margaery pokes a long finger into his chest to emphasis her words, and for a moment he’s shocked into silence, no one has ever dared to do that to him before! “So you be nice to her, or I’ll show you exactly what a plane propeller can do to the human body…” hisses Margaery. 

But then Bronn grabs her hand and leads her quickly up the stairs behind the bar as she shrieks happily.

“Take care of the bar, Sandy, we’re going to be busy!” Bronn shouts back down and Sandor growls deeply.

He’s at a loose fucking end without a beer in hand.  But when the giggles and shrieks become louder moans, he strips off his top and sets about the punch bag to drown out the sounds.  He wonders if he and Sansa were ever so fucking loud?! He vaguely remembers sounds from outside as he was wrapped up in Sansa during the day.  Gendry heading off in his truck for some repair job.  That great giant, Nan’s grandson, out in the garden, wrapping up some of her prize rosebushes for the coming winter.   Nan singing to herself as she dusts the endless number of china ornaments about the place.  Had they all been subjected to this racket too?  But he finds that, funnily enough, he doesn’t fucking care.

Eventually a smug Bronn and a wet haired Margaery return from the flat above, freshly showered but still they might as well be wearing signs that say ‘just fucked’.  Margaery is even wearing Bronn’s button up shirt as a top.  And then Sandor remembers Sansa in his black t-shirt, worn as a dress.  How long till four o’clock and she locks up the library?  He checks the clock.  It’s only eleven in the morning.  Fuck!

“Sorry mate, I should have locked up so you could go.” Bronn shrugs. “I weren’t thinking straight. Here, you should have a key if you're going to be working out here more often.”

Sandor's surprised at the gesture, at the trust, but he still takes the key. Then he shrugs any fucking significance off, wipping himself with the towel Bronn that chucks him before putting his t-shirt back on.  “Going for a run now.  I’d say you should join me.  But looks like Margaery already knackered you, old man.”

Margaery looks a little amazed. “Sandor! You were trying to be funny?!”

“See, that’s what love does.  It ruins all us old cynics!” laughs Bronn.

“Shut the fuck up, both of you.” He growls, and makes his way out.

He hesitates on the pavement.  He could go to the library instead…. And what?! Hang about there like one of her lame fucking admirers?  Make up some excuse for her to get on the little ladder and reach up to a top shelf for him? Nah, he’s going to run.

He picks a steady speed, but even so he’s near his old trailer site quicker than he expects, looking down from the road as he pauses to catch his breath, taking in the curve of the river and the flat plain of stones before it. 

He’s still breathing heavily when he sees the man out there, on the other side of the river from where he used to park up, a long dark coat and a dark head of hair.  Camera in hand. 

If that’s where Mormont’s sent you for the bears, then good luck mate, he thinks.  But something ain’t right with this bloody picture.  If he’s looking for bears, then why’s he still taking photos? And what exactly is he aiming at? One minute he’s aiming down, the next towards the treeline.  There ain’t nothing there!  Is he fucking taking pictures at all?! 

Something in Sandor’s gut clenches, and he starts down towards the trees at the side of the road.  But once he’s through them and finally on the stones he can’t see the man any more.  Fuck!

He made his way back to the road, picking up his pace again as that sick feeling in his belly he’s come to trust falls away on the road behind him. Just some man, just some man, his feet beat out the rhythm of his denial. 

So he almost doesn’t notice when half an hour down the road the wolf joins him.

When he finally sees it out the corner of his eye, there’s a second when he thinks its Sansa’s wolf. But it doesn’t have the brown, reddish tinge to its fur.  It’s a grey and black beast, thicker haired and bigger too.  It keeps pace by his side for a long while, before something dark and angry sparks in Sandor and he tries to outpace it.  Which is bloody laughable; a man trying to outrun a wolf! But he does pull ahead for seconds before it quickens its pace to match him.  Then he pulls away again.  But then it’s there again, running at his heels.  Playing with him.  But he keeps on speeding up to try and best the wolf!

He sees Gendry’s truck parked up on the side of the road through the red tinged field of his vision, through the heaving of his chest and the pain in his fucking side.  Sees the boy leaning against it and then standing upright as he sees the wolf and the man charging towards him.  Sees the boy walk out in front of them to get them to stop their insane race!

“Arya!” Gendry snaps at the wolf, who leaps and jumps around him in an over the top show of fucking energy as Sandor leans over and fights to urge to vomit. “Arya!”

Silver lines illuminate the wolf’s fur, highlighting its jagged edges, and then it’s the wolf girl in its place.  But not _his_ little wolf. Not his tender and gentle wild spirit.  This one is all muddy elbows and unkempt hair, with spiralling blue tattoos on its arms and long teeth aimed at him as she curls herself protectively about the large mechanic. Sandor averts his eyes from her nakedness, but not before he sees her change again, the pointed ears and the silver eyes disappearing.

“Is this _him_?!”

“Arya!”

“But he’s so _old_!”

He hears her bark out the words, but he’s still not looking at her.

“Bloody hell! Humans!” Arya snaps, no doubt rolling her eyes, the bloody teenager!

“Here, put this on.” He hears Gendry say, and he risks a look a moment later.  She’s pulling her mess of dark hair out from an old hoodie of the boy’s, which skirts her thin, dirty thighs.  It’s not exactly the same arousing image that Sansa in his t-shirt made…

“It’s not like you ain’t seen enough Stark tits lately, is it, old man?!”

“They weren’t as scrawny as yours, wolfbitch!” He barks back.  And Gendry moves towards him before Arya’s hand stops him.

“Old then.  But not out of fight.” She nods. Then suddenly she’s the wolf girl again, darting to him, and sniffing him in deeply, moving around his hair, his neck, his _crotch!_ And then she’s back to being the girl again.  The angry, annoying, girl.

“You stink.”  Arya growls. “Sweat.  Testosterone.  _Sansa!_ ”

Gendry coughs, and looks awkward.

“You’ve been fuc-” she starts.

“Little ladies shouldn’t swear.” Sandor says flatly and watches with a dark glee as she looks about ready to explode.  But then she nods, and calms herself, and it’s a bit like watching Sansa change into the librarian the way she resettles her back and her face.  But this new form is what she really is, he thinks, as he sees the coarseness replaced by a focussed wildness.

“You smell… _right_. Not for me.  For her.  But also for the pack.”

He nods, fighting the urge to bark back that he doesn’t care what she thinks of him and his ‘smell’.  But maybe he does.  Maybe he has to if he wants to help Sansa.

“What can we do? To help her?”

Arya nods this time. “You know almost as much as we know.  Gendry’s not the best storyweaver but he’s got the key points across. She has a better chance now her wolf has mated.  Better yet if she’s also accepting you as her mate for her ‘human’.  You can be some kind of continuity for her, between her forms.  There’s so much we don’t know about our histories, but my father thinks the mating relationship between direwolves and humans was key to the survival of both back in the long past.  In time, maybe, she’ll want to reclaim her wolf.” Suddenly she’s the ragged wolf girl again, curling around Gendry and nuzzling against him, then back to the human girl in the blink of an eye!

“How do I make her accept me as her mate for her human?”

Arya laughs, and it’s a sharp noise, almost a bitter noise.  “You aren’t really asking me for relationship advice are you?!  The human side of things will take its own time I suppose.  Wolves are so much simpler! It took me _years_ before I could get Gendry to lie with me!” She rolls her eyes.

“You were underage Arya! And I promised your father we’d wait, no matter what your wolf wanted!”

“Human rules!” She barks. “They don’t apply to wolves! Or to dogs… isn’t that right?”  She looks archly at Sandor.  How does she know about _that?!_ His surprise must have shown on his face.

“‘Dog’ is right isn’t it?  You’ve got that ‘tamed’ look.” She near spits out the word.  “You even smell a bit like a dog. What was it… military? Family?”

“Both.”

She narrows her eyes.  “It’s useful.  She’ll need all your hunting skills and your bloody puppy-like devotion if she ever gets worse-”

“Worse?!”

“Has Gendry told you about our aunt and our two uncles?

Lyanna. Brandon.  Benjen. The names are burned into his memory.  It could happen to Sansa.

“Benjen went completely wild.  He’s lost forever, if he’s even still alive.  If Sansa snaps… she’ll vanish like he did.” Arya finally sounds emotional.  “I wasn’t a good sister, dog.  We fought _all_ the time.  But when Joffrey attacked me she was there.  She changed to save _me_.  I was near to changing for the first time myself and I think I would have done if she hadn’t jumped on him first.  But I never got to run with my pack sister when my wolf finally came to me a few months later.  By then she’d already run away from us all.”

She’s the wolf girl suddenly, but her sadness follows her, and then she _does_ look like the little wolf who visits him.   The Arya wolf girl howls in sorrow, right in the middle of the valley road.  Then Arya the human is back, with tears on her face.

“Please...  Please look after my sister.”

Gendry, the daft fool, is wiping his own tears away.

“I promise.  I’ll swear it by whatever traditions you’ve got, wolf.” He swallows hard, something caught in his bloody eyes.

“The old ways are almost entirely lost now.  All we’ve got now are some words about Winter and ancient dreams of running with human mates in the long history.  But we think the old gods listen to us still.  So you break that fucking promise, and believe me when I tell you this… they’ll break you too, dog.”


	14. Chapter 14

Arya’s words chased him all the way on his run back into town.  But were they Arya’s words or his own? Apart from the oath he’d taken the day he’d enlisted, he wasn’t certain he’d ever made any kind of promise before.  And that was just some bollocks about being faithful and bearing true allegiance to the Queen, and her bloody heirs.  Just words, and a promise to some God he’d never much paid attention to.   He’d never even made any promises to the men in his squad when he’d awkwardly climbed the rungs of promotions and been put in charge of them.  Or when he’d been transferred to a special forces team.  Or when they’d wanted to keep in touch after he decided to quit.  The closest he’d got was telling them that he would always have their back.  Well, now he wanted to protect a fuck load more than just Sansa’s back. 

Him?! Swearing by the bloody _old gods_?! It would be fucking laughable if he hadn’t watched Arya change like quicksilver in front of him, if he didn’t know that Sansa’s only hope for survival was if she could learn to accept her fucking _wolf_ again.  God damn it, if he had to believe in magic and druids and all that shit to keep her safe then he would!

But running up the winding forest road into the few patched up shops of Bearpaw made it all the more surreal.  Amidst the dark pines, with the winter’s cold wind breathing on his face as he worked old muscles, he could almost _believe_.  But _here_? Beneath Bronn’s neon sign and with the library and its books on science and actual bloody _facts_ just on the next street? Gods and fucking magic? No, there was only one thing he _knew_ he fucking believed in.  One person. 

It was nearly closing up time he thought, so he decided to jog on round the corner towards the library. Which brought him near crashing into Mormont and some bird.

She was small, wrapped up in a thick blue woollen coat with a fur collar that nearly swamped her tanned face, pale silver blonde hair in a plait to one side of it.  One of those dye jobs that made unnatural colours he guessed.  And those purple eyes… bloody stupid contacts lenses!  He hid his sneer but then he had to fight back his instinct to growl at the pair as the girl raised two thin eyebrows at him.  Staring at his scars no fucking doubt!

“It’s you?! It is isn’t it?!”

“I told you we’d find him near Bronn’s-”smirked Mormont.

“Oh, I am so pleased to finally meet you!” She was grabbing at his large hand to shake it with her tiny mittened one.  The accent…? Russian, maybe? Slavic?

“Sandor, might I have the pleasure of introducing Daenerys Targaryen, granddaughter of the Russian lord in exile, Count Jaehaerys Targaryen-”

“Now, please Jorah, I only told you about my family’s titles because you were interested in my background.  But I do not need grand introductions!  My family ran from Bolshevism, but they actually abandoned their titles and ran back again when they saw that there was money to be made in the new Russia!  And then _I_ ran to Los Angeles when I decided I’d had enough of the cold!” She wraps her arms about herself, smiling. “If I had not been so keen to meet you Mr Clegane, I would not be here in this freezing place either! I would be back in my beloved deserts where it is so lovely and hot!”

Daenerys…? Dany the lizard photographer?

“You were the other photographer, for the exhibition.”

“I had hoped to meet you in Los Angeles after it went down so well in New York.  But you didn’t _even_ send a picture to go with your bio.  What there was of _that!_ Where did you study? You are British, yes? Central St Martins? I attended the California Institute of the Arts-”

“No school.  How did you get here?” He’s snapping at her, like he did with the librarian, feeling unsettled about being such a fucking mess in front of a pretty face again.  But even if Jorah’s hovering protectively over the little blonde like he thinks Sandor’s interested, he _ain’t_.  Might be amusing to rile Mormont and play it like he is… but Sansa’s sweet face comes to mind and he won’t do that to her, even for a joke.     

“We have… what did they call themselves? Ah yes, ‘patrons des artes’.  They came to the New York show _and_ the Los Angeles show and bought works from both of us.  When they said that they wanted to come to Bearpaw and meet you I thought I would come along-”

“But no one should know where I live!” He barks, frowning, and he watches the smitten bear take a step forward.

“I’m afraid your agent was a bit chatty at the after show drinks.” Smiles Dany.

He’ll fucking kill him.

“But no harm done, surely?  They’re a very pleasant couple.” She smiles up at Mormont, and he near enough puffs up with her attention.  “Jorah has been so kind and allowed us all to stay in his own home.  Have you been there? So beautiful, it’s a little island escape.  And such large fireplaces!”

‘Bear Island’, the Mormont home.  He’s seen it.  A huge place in the middle of the lake with fake Tudor beams that make the Brit in him cringe.

“The Hills… that’s the couple… were very tired after the flights, so they’re resting up.  But I _had_ to come and find you and introduce myself! And, if it’s okay with Jorah…” she looks up at Mormont again, and Sandor thinks she could ask for both of his kidneys at this point and she’d get them. “I wonder if we might all have dinner together tomorrow night.  At the house?”

“Whatever you want, Miss Targaryen.” agrees Jorah.

“Oh, I told you, no titles! Just Dany!” She smiles back at Sandor. “Do please say you’ll come?”

He wants to say no.  He bloody wants to shout it out to be honest.  A dinner with two pretentious New York art collectors, and Mormont mooning over this little Russian princess? He’d rather gut himself.

He near jumps as she places her mittened hand on his arm. “Do please say yes.”

“Um… Hello?” Sandor does jump then as Sansa suddenly walks up to them, a question clear on her face as she looks at the mitten resting on him.

“Uh, this is Sansa… _Poole_.” He kicks himself for the pause.  “Sansa this is Dany.”

“Daenerys Targaryen, granddaughter of the-” starts Jorah again.

“Dany is fine.” She extends her mitten towards Sansa, finally removing it from his arm.  Sansa shakes it.  But is she holding the girl’s hand for a moment longer than she should?  And Dany seems to be frowning…

“Ow… well, if you’d like to bring your girlfriend with you.” Dany says weakly.

Sandor is surprised when Sansa curls herself against him, putting her arm through his. “I would love to come!”

“Until tomorrow then.”

Dany seems to be rubbing her hand through the mitten as she and Jorah walk off.

“Where am I coming?” Whispers Sansa to him.

“Dinner at Mormont’s with this ‘Dany’ and some stinking rich New Yorkers. Wait, did you just hurt her? When you shook her hand-?”

“Me?! No, I would never do something like that!” She smiles, and he’s suddenly very aware that she’s still wrapped about him, dressed in her smart librarian get up. A long skirt to her ankles that he really wants to get under, and a silken blouse beneath her open coat that slides softly against his arm, the swell of her breast underneath it. “Have you been running?”

“Aye.” He nods, still frowning at her odd behaviour.

“Well, maybe we should get back to the guesthouse and get you cleaned up…”  She smiles shyly at him and suddenly he forgets all about smitten bears and foreign lizard girls.  And Sansa’s jealousy.

***

He’s kind of glad that he ain’t grabbing at her as they walk into his room.  He was a moment from it, a moment from messing up that perfectly drawn on lip colour she’s wearing, a moment from fiddling with those tiny buttons on her blouse.  But then he spots Old Nan and her giant grandson on the other side of his French doors, staring in at them.

Hodor just raises a hand to wave as Nan snaps, her voice distorted through the glass. “I hope you know that these repairs will be added to your bill Mr Clegane!” She gestures angrily at the wooden board nailed over the broken pane. “Next time you get drunk and lose your keys-!”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be taking care of him from now on!” Sansa marches to the doors and swishes the curtain across them, across Nan’s scandalised face.

“I didn’t just do that, did I?” She’s blushing red again as she leans against the wall by the doors, a hand moving to cover her perfect mouth. “Oh god, she’s the worst gossip in town!”

“Fuck’em, they’re already talking so let’s give her something that’s worth gossiping about.”  He says, pulling her onto the bed and finally getting his way under that fucking long skirt.

Sansa gasps as his fingers find her. “I thought you were going to shower…”

“I will if it bothers you?”

“Um, no.  You smell… good actually.”

“So do you.” He pushes her skirts up to get at her knickers, yanking them down in a quick movement.  He wants to taste her but she’s already pulling at him, urging him higher up her body and curling her long dark boots about his back to draw him closer to her heat. 

“Now?”

“Now!” Sansa almost sounds like she’s growling and he has stop for a second to check her eyes.  Blue, still stunning blue.  He quickly pushes down his jogging bottoms with one hand as the other finds what he needs in the drawers and then he’s in her in one swift movement that makes her inhale sharply, her nails digging into his back through his top.

He moves hurriedly inside her, and it’s more like a quick rutting than anything they’ve done before.  He doesn’t want to finish so soon, but with her gasping and curling about him he’s completely gone.  She shudders too, and the prim and proper librarian form she’s been wearing all day is well and truly messed up by his sweat soaked clothes on hers and by the way her body is writhing under his as her pleasure takes her.  Her hair is a red tangled halo around her flushed face as he pulls back to look at her under him.  He strokes her cheek, her lips, her neck.

“That was-” he starts.

“Sorry, but I’d been thinking about that all day.”

“You have?” He growls, a low pleased sound for once.

She kisses him, deeply, before he does get up for the shower.  She rearranges her skirts as he looks back from the bathroom door. “I wouldn’t bother love” he says, “I’m only going to be taking them off in a minute.”

He strips and gets into the shower, and the water is just starting to run when she comes in to the bathrrom.

“Joining me? I can wash your back?”

“In a minute.  Sandor.  That girl-”

“Dany, the mad lizard girl? What of her?” He shouts over the sound of the water.

“She called me your girlfriend.”

“That bother you?” His heart sinks.

“No… I… You know I haven’t really had a boyfriend before.”

“Me neither, lass.”

“Very funny.”

“Get in here.” He barks.

She elegantly removes the wrinkled blouse, the skirt, her bra.  It matches her knickers today he notices.  She was planning to see him after work and it pleases the fuck out of him.

With the water running over them it’s hard to speak, but he doesn’t care.  He loves to see her hair sleek and darken in the water.  He loves to rub the plain soap in his hands and then caress the bubbles over her slippery skin.  He loves… oh fuck!

“Girlfriend?” She asks again, cautiously, blinking water out of her eyes like they’re tears.  It’s a short question, like the wolf girl would back out, but in a softer, almost worried, tone.

He turns her about, settling her arse against his cock as it starts to harden again. He can get his mouth against her ear and whisper crude things into it now.  But it ain’t crude what he says, it’s gentler than anything he can recall saying before.  Gentler than when he said it to the wolf girl in a way she’d understand.

“I love you.” He breathes the words against the water, against the rest of the bloody world.

She turns quickly, a smile spreading on her flushed lips.  And then he lifts her, knocking against the shower as he does, breaking the head from the wall. But he doesn’t care because he’s in her again, claiming her. Claiming the human. 

“Sandor, the shower!”

“She can add it to my bloody bill!” he says, focussing on her instead.  And he’s so far gone that its only later, when they’re curled up on the bed, their hair drying in the warmth of the room that she adds to, that he realises she hasn’t said it back.

***

He’s wide awake in a second, the inventory of weapons running through his mind again, before he realises that the sound is coming from outside.  That something is tapping on the glass of the French doors. Something out in the gardens.

He extricates himself from Sansa, from the tumble of her hair and the softness of her limbs. She looks… satisfied, even while asleep. After a nap they’d snuck down into Nan’s basement kitchen.  In theory they were allowed to use it as long term guests.  Sansa had even said that Nan regularly gave her some of homemade broth when she was cooking for Hodor and herself. But after the cost of the damage to the glass doors and the shower Sandor wondered if he was going to have a room soon, let alone free food. But between them they had cooked up some forgotten farfalle found in the back of a dusty cupboard, covering it in a melted cheese sauce made from a stinking cheddar they found in the fridge.  He was more used to burning meat on a small campfire and Sansa’s only cooking experience was making dhal for forty at the commune… and roasting small mammals on a fire in the woods.  But that pasta was one of the best meals he’d ever had.  And fucking bound to be more pleasant than the dinner at Mormont’s the next evening.  Especially as they’d washed up together… before fucking on the kitchen table.

They’d drifted off to sleep in his bed after Sansa had mumbled promises about taking better care of him, and his diet in particular.  But all he thought about was taking care of her.

So seeing Arya in the garden, standing in the darkness outside his room, arms crossed impatiently across her top, his heart leaps straight into his throat.

He’s out the door and following her quickly as she marches away from his room. And the sleeping Sansa.

“What’s wrong?” he whispers.

“I have to wear a bloody _hoodie_ but you-” She frowns and he realises that he’s naked. Arya raises an eyebrow as she stares at him boldly. “Oh, so that’s why she likes you, dog.”

“Shut up.  What’s wrong?! Gendry said you wouldn’t ever come into town.”

“My father sent me a message.”

“By magic?”

“By text.” She rolls her eyes. “I know you’re old but even you must know what an iPhone is…”

“Come on wolfbitch!”

“He’s worried.  Bran’s been having bad dreams.” She frowns at his blank look. “Bran.  Our little brother.  He’s kind of special, even for a direwolf.  Dad thinks he’s closest to what the old people were like.  And when he has bad dreams we should pay attention.”

“So… magic messages then!” He growls at her. “What’s he been dreaming about?”

“It’s a muddle.  But something bad is coming. Dad’s moving the pack, bringing them here.”

“All of them?”

“They’ve never been too far away.  The wolves miss their human mates otherwise, the ones who watch Sansa. So they’ll be here as soon as they can be. Though Robb’s mate might not fly, she’s getting pretty close to her time.”

He eventually realises what she means “Sansa’s going to be an aunt?”

“Yeah, that’s happening. The pack’s getting bigger again.” She smiles at him, the whiteness of her teeth shining in the moonlight.  And then she’s just…  _gone_.

The shape that has Arya laid out on the floor is a blur, a reddish brown blur, with snapping teeth and out-stretched claws. It looks like the wolf, and then the wolf girl, and then back again as silver lines trace over its changes.  Arya fights back, changing into her between form too, using the strength of the direwolf to fight back against her own sister.  She flings the little wolf girl back off her, growling.

“Her wolf doesn’t recognise me!” Arya yells, human for a split second before the wolf girl is pushing her down onto the grass again, growling and snapping.

“Sansa!” yells Sandor.

She pauses then, looking back at him before darting to his side and curling about him as Arya had done with Gendry.

“Mine!” she growls at Arya as she lies dazed in the midst of a flower bed.

“Oh bloody hell!  She just sees a rival!” Says Arya, before spitting out blood and wiping even more away from her eyes, flowing from a cut there. “He’s yours! Okay! I don’t want him!”

But Sansa is charging at her again, making the dark haired girl change again as they roll over and over each other.  Sandor wades in, grabbing at the red hair of his wolf girl and yanking her off the hissing wolfbitch.  Another pair of hands suddenly grasp Arya and fold her into a massive bear hug, holding her tight.  Hodor?!

“Let me go you bloody moron! I’m not fucking _feral_ like _her!_ ”

“Don’t you fucking call her that!” Snaps Sandor as a confused Hodor releases the bruised and cut dark haired girl.  The little wolf writhes in his arms, but he isn’t letting her go.  Fuck, she’s strong though!  He’s glad of the extra training he’s been doing lately now.

“Get her back inside! Any luck and she won’t even remember this later.  I’ll go.  My scent’s only going to wind her up more if I hang about.” Arya staggers off into the dark as Sandor and Hodor watch, the hissing and growling wolf girl slowly calming as her ‘rival’ leaves.

“Thanks.” he says to the giant who just shrugs like this is something he does every day.  “Your grandmother’s going to fucking go spare.” He looks about at the damage they’ve done to her blessed gardens.  Hodor just shakes his head, and walks towards a shed in a corner of the garden, reaching inside for his tools as Sandor hoists the wolf girl over his bare shoulder, ignoring quite how triumphant she looks, and carries her back to his room.


	15. Chapter 15

Sandor looked down at the pretentious fucking piece of folded card and fought the urge to pick it up and crush it in the palm of his hand… right in front of Mormont’s bloody face! ‘Sandor Clegane’, it said in a fucking poncy font, handwritten in rich blue ink within a thin scrolling golden frame.  What gave Mormont the right, the bloody nerve, to tell him where to si-

“Oh look, how lovely!  We have name cards!” Sansa beamed and Sandor tempered his glower.

She had picked hers up and was smiling at the delicate, frilly writing.  ‘Sansa Poole’ was going to be next to ‘Jorah Mormont’ Sandor had spotted as soon as they’d entered the candlelit room.  More bloody pretention!  But the seating plan annoyed him more than the flickering lights and the silver cutlery.  More even than the grandiose way Jorah had greeted them at the door to his mock-tudor house on the island.  More even than having the suited young men Jorah had obviously hired for the night wait on them in the ‘library’.  Even fucking more than having other men speed them across the lake in a motorboat, Sansa gasping at the beauty of the dark water in the moonlight.

By the bloody git’s seating plan, ‘Sansa Poole’ would be next to ‘Jorah Mormont’ while ‘Sandor Clegane’ was stuck between the Hill woman opposite her and the lizard girl sat at the opposite head of the table to the fucking ‘lord of the manor’, Mormont. He’d figured that out in the few moments that they’d had in the dining room as Jorah took his ‘aperitif’ with him to check on something in the kitchens, before the other guests joined them.  And he’d seen that there were more fancy name cards for the ‘Countess Daenerys Targaryen’, and the Hills; ‘Melara’ and ‘Jaime’.

The Hill bloke would be opposite him, and it was more than he could hope for that he’d be the sort who’d also find all this fucking nonsense annoying.  This Jaime Hill was New York money, an art collector of sorts.  He was probably going to love the whole bloody evening while Sandor fumed, and held his tongue for Sansa.

Just like he’d been fucking doing all day.  He’d wanted to gently prod Sansa into memories of her fight with her sister when it had become bloody apparent that she had woken up with none of them.  And no bruises or scratches either, even though Sandor had looked her over before the wolf girl had finally slept, finding himself hurting inside for every single cut on her from the bushes and her sister’s claws.  But now there was no sign that anything had ever fucking happened and he was going near mad from stopping himself from shouting Arya’s bloody name at her!

“Thank you.”

“What are you thanking me for, girl?!” he snapped, his irritation at her lack of memory getting to him.

“I can see that you hate this.  But I really appreciate your effort.  It’s been a very long time since I’ve done anything like this.” She smiles shyly at him, and he was reminded of the same smile she’d given him as she’d slowly walked down to him, to where he waited for her at the bottom of the wooden stairs in the guesthouse. Waited for her to finish dressing, briefly alone again in her own room, like he was some kind of fucking prom date.  And he’d even bloody been in the closest thing to a tux he fucking had, the dark suit that he’d worn to his father’s funeral. True, he’d been pleased he fit back into it again, but he fucking hoped with all the nonsense about magic and druids going about that that wasn’t some kind of fucking ill omen for the evening!

“I did tell you that you look nice, didn’t I?” She said cautiously.  She had.  At the bottom of the stairs, when he’d been tongue tied at the sight of her endless legs in the short lavender dress with the tiny, too easily ripped off, straps. And again when they’d driven in his truck to the small jetty on the lake and he’d been trying to keep on the road and out of the dark woods where he might get to touch her.  And again when she’d carefully taken his hand and rung the bell at the big house. Maybe she’d been hoping to hear it back, and he watched her fidgeting now after she’d said it, leaning forward against the high backed chair that sat by her name on the table.  She was messing about with the already perfectly set cutlery, lightly touching it repeatedly, displacing it and then righting it.  But it felt too awkward to say it now, so he didn’t. 

When her eyes lowered, he kicked himself mentally. 

No, fuck _kicking_ himself! He was imagining fucking chopping himself apart with a broadsword like one of the armoured warriors in the books she’d recommended to him! He was a fucking idiot! He could tell her that he loved her when she was naked in the shower with him, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell her that she looked stunning in her simple but pretty dress?!  Just because she wanted him to? How fucked up was that?!

But before he got the chance to right things, the door to the dining room was opening and Mormont was leading in his blessed fucking guests.

Dany was escorted on his arm, that false ash blonde hair loose over a blue dress cinched with gold beading around her waist that Sandor assumed was fashionable.  It was certainly more ornate than Sansa’s plain dress and he felt her blush from the other side of the table as they both stood there, a pair of fucking lemons.  Shit.  He really should have said something already!

And then there were the Hills. 

She was beautiful.  Much older than the two girls, a woman in her forties he thought, but with the lithe grace of a much younger woman.  Long waving dark brown hair over an expensive looking rich red dress that showed nothing had fucking headed south in her fifth decade.  And this ‘Jaime’.  Well he was handsome he supposed, in the way that Sandor thought women liked, in a bespoke fucking suit with a fucking flashy dark red silk lining that matched her dress.  He had one of those strong jawlines women whimpered about, and longish fair hair that flicked as he moved.  Not at all like the long dark strands that Sandor’d finally given up on earlier in the day and had let fall as they bloody would.  And this Jaime’s hair surrounded a face with laughing green eyes and no fucking burns.

They made a handsome fucking couple, walking into the room arm in arm just like Dany and Jorah.  In fact, he thought they were really fucking similar now that Sandor could see the woman also had cat like green eyes. Wasn’t that something that people said, that you should be attracted to people who looked like you?  His eyes darted to Sansa, saw her entranced with the glamorous couple and knew that no one would ever call them alike.  Him… tall, broad, and grim to look at.  He knew it well enough.  And her… graceful, beautiful… red of hair and pale of skin. And a wild fucking spirit underneath the cold elegance.

“You look bloody stunning.” He whispered quickly at her, gaining a blush and a quick smile before introductions were being made, Mormont going off on one again about Dany’s fucking titled past.

“Weren’t there four of you?  Margaery said-” Grumbled Sandor, not knowing why he cared.

“Margaery? Oh, yes the pilot.” Purred the Hill woman.  “I’m afraid our assistant, Mr White, is a little anti-social.  He prefers to dine alone.”

Did he really prefer it, or did the Hills prefer their ‘help’ out of fucking sight?  But Sandor was really only jealous of the man as they took their seats and the suited men started serving bowls of beige parsnip soup.

Jaime was already raving about the pictures of Sandor’s he’d seen in New York and Los Angeles.  Something about their ‘entrancing naivete and ironic juxtapositions of man and nature’, or some other bollocks.  He took pictures of animals in the wild. It weren’t art to his mind, but now Dany was blathering on about her final project in college that took her to the deserts for the first time and those bloody lizards.  He listens with half an ear in case he needs to mutter a positive or a negative, but he’s more interested in what the Hill woman next to him is saying to Sansa.

Something about her dress.  And he realises that the two other women are wearing dresses that not only look expensive, but are also _long_.  Is Sansa underdressed?  He frowns, if she’s bloody making Sansa feel bad because she’s not meeting some fucking dress code she didn’t even know about-!”

But Sansa sounds pleased.  Melara is actually complimenting her, noting the fineness of the craftsmanship.  Wait? Did Sansa make the pretty little dress that he’s been thinking about sliding off of her since she slowly walked down the stairs towards him?  For fuck’s sake, he’s so bloody blind!

“Such talent! You should make something for me too! A one off would turn every one of my circle in New York perfectly green! Isn’t she clever, Mormont?!”

But Sandor can see that Jorah’s distracted by Dany opposite him, at the far end of the table.  Clever bloody old codger, he’s put her where he can stare at her all night and pretend it’s all about her fucking title!

“Ugh, what, sorry?”  he stutters.

“Such talent!” She says it again, but Sandor is less convinced by her enthusiasm this time. In fact he can almost feel his hackles rising as she gushes.  It’s exactly the same kind of false curtesy he’d accused the librarian when they’d first met, but now he’s hearing Melara wittering away he can tell the difference.  The librarian was just being friendly.  And he really doesn’t know what this older woman is being just yet.

“With a talented seamstress, and a talented photographer for a father, your children would be so gifted!” Melara gushes and he and Sansa near spit out the bland soup at the same time.

“We really haven’t been together that long, Mrs Hill, to be thinking about… _children_.  Just a few weeks really-”

“Call me Melara.  _Please_.  But anyone can see how enamoured you are of each other.  Obvious age difference aside.” She turns and smiles at him.  “You haven’t taken your eyes off of her. Or is it that my husband’s conversation is immensely dull?”

“Melara!” Laughs Jaime.  The idiot seems to find this rude behaviour charming!

“I think I would like some more wine.” Says Sansa to one of the hovering hired men.

“What is the gap in your ages exactly?”

“It’s exactly none of your fucking business!” barks Sandor.

“Come now, Clegane!” Says Mormont, rage clear on his face at him for upsetting his precious dinner.

“Forgive me, I did not mean to upset you, Mr Clegane!  I am here purely because I am a tremendous fan of your work!” Her apology is fervent, but he can’t shake the feeling that something else is going on here.

“I do not find age differences to be problematic.  It is love that is important, is it not?” Says Dany quietly from the end of the table, and Mormont freezes suddenly.

“Indeed! Love conquers all, after all! To love!” Melara lifts her wine and they toast.  Sandor reluctantly joins in, but he’s fucking pleased when Sansa catches his eyes after and gives him a small smile.

“Ah, here’s the next course!” Cheers Jaime inanely as the men return bearing more fucking silver platters and clear away the soup.

Sandor didn’t notice it with the starter, perhaps he’d just assumed the man was a leftie as he sipped from his silver spoon.  But with the main, it was far more obvious as he stabbed a fork into pre-cut pieces of the rich, cream smothered, chicken with his left hand, his right remaining in his lap.  Jaime noticed his curious looks and smirked at him.

“Ignore the toddler at the table, Mr Clegane.” He held up his right hand. His other, prosthetic hand, and shrugged. “Melara insists on having the kitchen staff do this for me wherever we dine.  That’s why we were late meeting you this evening.”

“Oh!” Gasped Dany. “How did it happen?!”

Sandor was used to these kinds of reactions, but he was surprised when Jaime didn’t snap back at her, but instead just ruefully laughed. “I’d like to pretend it happened during a youthful misadventure, but I was merely unlucky on a hunting trip.”

Dany muttered a disproving ‘hmmm’ at the mention of hunting, and turned to Sandor.  “And your scars?”

He frowns down at her, and Mormont saves her from his harsh words, proposing another fucking toast.

“To new friends!”

Sandor does not join in and Dany leans closer to whisper to him. “In Russia it is incredibly bad courtesy not to take part in the toast! In fact we propose a new toast with every new round of drinks-”

“We’re not in Russia, _Countess_.” He snaps, and out of the corner of his eye he sees Sansa drinking again.  How much has she had? He’s been sticking to the water, but she’s been on the white wine since they went to Mormont’s bloody ‘library’.  Although, library is too strong a word for the three shelves of books that might actually have been opened once, and a fucking job lot of books with leather spines to look good against the walls!

“I told you Mr Clegane, I do not use that title!”

“Tell Mormont then, he’s been bandying it about all the time to impress us simple bloody common-folk!”

 “I believe I met your brother once, Dany.” Said Jaime, interrupting as Sansa glared at Sandor.

“It is likely.  He is very busy in New York. Club promotions, that sort of thing-”

“And he’s a man not afraid to make good use of a title.” Murmered Melara around her large sip of wine as Dany glared at her. Sansa mimicked the older woman.

“Tell me Sandor, are you taking any more pictures soon?” Melara leant towards him, and he fought the urge to recoil from her heaving bosom and her heady perfume. “I would so love to join you and see you at work.” She rested a hand on his right arm, stopping him from eating the last of his chicken.

“Might be.  We were thinking of a trip into the woods tomorrow.” The words are out of his mouth before he thinks them through.

“Wonderful! We have hiking gear with us!”

“I didn’t bloody mean-“

That hand’s still on his arm.  And her thumb is moving, stroking his forearm through the thick dark material of his suit.  What the actual fuck?!

He near stands up when he feels her satin clad thigh push against his.  Sansa looks over, confused at his movement, and he sees her notice the woman’s hand on his arm.  And her face darkens as quick as a Summer storm.  Oh hell, the last thing they need is for her to go wolf in the middle of a fucking posh dinner on fucking posh silver fucking plates-

Shit. Shit. Shit!  Why didn’t he _notice_? _Silver_ cutlery.  _Silver_ plates.  Even silver fucking bowls for the soup!

He looks at her with concern as Mormont witters on about something or other with Jaime, but there’s no sign that it’s hurting her.  Only that dark furious look on her face as Melara is still leaning close and planning their fucking joint hike!

“I am so very sorry, but I have a terrible headache all of a sudden.” It’s the clipped voice of the librarian, the cold chill of the winter in her words as she glares at him.  He hasn’t fucking done anything! But as she suddenly stands, he sees her wobble a little.  “I am afraid I will have to go home.”

“Of course, you _must_ go! I am a terrible martyr to migraines, I perfectly understand!” Gushes Melara, and Dany nods, even if Jaime burbles some weak protests about calling the dinner short. But he still stands politely with Mormont as Sansa makes her overly proper goodbyes.

Sandor follows her quickly, grabbing their coats from the hovering hired help and charging after her out of the door and following her across the lawn. 

If he had a tail to hang between his legs he’d be doing it now.  It’s not that he feels to blame for the flirting lush, Mrs Hill.  It’s because he’s missed how much she’s been drinking, and the fucking silver she’s been holding all night.

“Are you okay?” He asks as they reach the boat house, the fat moon hanging over the water.

“Did you want her?!”

“Sansa… come on! She’s just an old flirt!”

“She’s closer to your age, Sandor! And she doesn’t become a wolf every full moon!”

“You’re not thinking straight!” He tries to grab her hand, but she hisses and pulls away from him. “Show me.”

“It’s nothing! Stupid Jorah and his stupid airs and graces!” She holds out her hands and even in the moonlight he can see the raw redness of them.  “It was only silver plate, not sterling! It stung a little but the wine helped a bit…”

She sags against the wall of the boathouse.  A man with a torch is approaching from the house, their boat captain no doubt.

He moves closer, grabbing her arm to support her. “I’m sorry Sansa.  I’ve done a terrible fucking job of looking after you this evening-”

She glares at him. “I never asked you to look after me!”

The captain halts some ways away, giving them space as he hears her snap at him.

“Your wolf did.” He whispers to her.  “I have to protect you! And I missed the fucking silver, and the wine-”

“I am _not_ drunk!” She barks.  And there’s silver in her eyes suddenly, glinting at him sharply.

“Can you give us a bloody moment?” He yells at the captain and the man shrugs, moving back towards the house and going inside.

“I looked after myself just fine for six years before I met you Sandor Clegane!” She’s pushing at her coat, but she doesn’t even seem to notice what’s she doing. “I was perfectly fine before I met you!  You… you… old drunk!”

There are tears on her cheeks.  Silver tears, like the wolf’s.  Before he can react, grab her and hold her close, she’s pushed her coat off and is running towards the water’s edge.

“Sansa!” He bellows, running after her.  But the wolf is in her and she’s faster, diving into the water like a silver fish before he can grab her.

He sits down heavily at the edge of the water and watches her dark shape moving across the lake.  He can just make her out on the other side as she crawls out, still in that lavender dress he thought he’d see on his bedroom floor later.  And then she’s in the shadows of the trees and gone.


	16. Chapter 16

This time the bloody motorboat wasn’t going fast enough. 

The captain had ignored the lack of a second returning passenger for a quickly slipped fifty. But most like the hired man had already dismissed the argument and the vanishing girl as the foolishness of people too rich to have real problems.  Little did he fucking know, but Sandor wasn’t about to correct him.

He ran up the jetty, making the wooden structure shake and sway, running to where the truck was parked.  If he got back to the guesthouse quickly maybe he could get Gendry onto a search team, and have him call Arya and have her use her wolf skills to track down Sansa.  He cursed himself for abandoning mobile phones a long ways back, but there had never been anyone to fucking call, or to call him, for so fucking long.  But not now.

He grabbed for the door handle and paused.  The ground about the wheels and the high doors was all chewed up.  Something had paced here.  Something had also scratched at the red paintwork of the truck, trying to open the doors with claws. Sansa!

He turned about and about, scouring the dark woods.  Where had she gone though, after giving up on the truck?  He fucking hoped, fucking prayed to the Starks' gods, that that was all she had given up on…

Footprints… human and wolf, going from one to the other as she changed.  Shit, she was changing as quickly as Arya, but he had the strongest, almost sickening, feeling in his gut that it wasn’t in the controlled way that he’d seen the wolfbitch do it.  He grabbed a torch from the truck and followed them, away from the truck and into the woods, sweeping the thin beam of flight along bushes and thick undergrowth, looking for any sign of her as the fat moon poked through the skeletal trees.

“Sansa! Sansa!”  He bellowed, but she could be miles away by now if she was running as fast as Arya had done in their ‘race’.

Something drifted onto his cheek and he stopped in his tracks.

Cold, a spot of cold on his un-ruined side, melting into a wet nothing against his flushed skin.  It was starting to snow, the first snow he’d seen in Bearpaw.  He fights the rising panic… but it’s only a few fucking flakes.  And she’s better prepared for the cold than he’ll ever be; the furnace inside her burning hotter than he does as a bloody human. 

“Sansaaaa!” There’s panic in his voice, a trembling he doesn’t recall ever being there before.  Because it’s not about the cold, it’s about her being alone out here.  Because werewolves die alone.

He’s running, even though he doesn’t know which way to be heading.  Running, leaping over fallen boughs and small bushes.  Running and praying that he’ll catch sight of her out the corner of his eye as he used to, once in his imagination, and once for real, not far from a tent and a night of comfort for them both.

And then suddenly a dark shape zeros in on him and in a second the air is gone from his chest and there’s dirt and ice in his mouth as he’s ground into the forest floor by something that’s all sharp claws and sharp teeth.  He defends himself, grabbing her arms with a strong grip.  It’s his little wolf, but as he’s never seen her before.  It’s not just rage, it’s pain.  And the wolf girl shakes her head with it, red hair whipping back and forth above him, swirling the rapid snowflakes about them both.

“Sansa!”

She pauses, her silver eyes frantic and wild still though. And then something in her softens, the little wolf returning through whatever pain is bleeding through into her from the human.  Or is it the other way around? Has it been the wolf that’s been making Sansa so jealous, the same wolf that tried to tear into Arya for just speaking with him?

She nestles against him abruptly, the shredded purple dress trailing ribbons of silk against his pounding heart.  He comforts her, strokes her hair and her back, mumbles their words over and over again into her elongated ear as he rests his lips on her soft skin. ‘Mine’ and ‘Yours’.  ‘Yours’ and ‘Mine’.

“See! I told you she wouldn’t hurt him!”

The triumphant voice is already familiar; the tone of victory in it can only belong to Sansa’s irritating know-all sister. He pulls himself up, the little wolf still curled against his chest, but now she’s looking where he does to the two dark figures in among the trees.  He watches the larger of them sling something up and over his back, putting his arms through leather straps.  Something long and thin, wrapped in a draping black material.  Not a bloody backpack.

The wolf girl growls at Arya, moving away from Sandor’s lap towards her.

“Bloody hell! Not again!  Look, I _don’t_ want _him!_ ”

“Arya. Run a perimeter.” The man talks with authority, and with a certain age.  And the more Sandor hears him talk, the more he certain he’s not only British but from the north.  Nor as far as Scotland like him, but Yorkshire way, maybe?  And he’s an older man, with long dark hair Sandor can just make out in the dull light from his fallen torch.

“No! What if she turns on you?”

“She won’t.  Run a perimeter.”

Sandor feels a chill.  His father used to talk to him like that, issued orders instead of made requests.  But there’s warmth in this man’s voice too, a warmth Sandor never knew from his father.  Or his fucking brother.

“I won’t leave you with her!”

“Arya, where are you in your cycle? If you are particularly fertile she could be reacting to that…”

“Dad!” She exclaims before a frown slams across her long face. “Fine!” And then she’s gone, slipping into her between shape with a silver glimmer and speeding through the dark.

“I forget that she’s still just a teenager sometimes, Sandor. And one easily embarrassed by her father, at that.” Says the dark figure as he crouches, facing towards Sansa.

“Mr White?”

“Eh? What’s that, Sandor? No, not ‘White’.  _Stark_.  Though, I suppose you should call me Ned, Sandor, since you’re Pack.” His words are gruff, but he puts an emphasis on the last word like it’s the most important thing in the world. Ned Stark, Sansa’s father?

“Who’s this Mr White, Sandor?” He’s talking at him, but focussing on Sansa.  He’s getting on his knees, shuffling closer, not caring about the dirt and the leaves, or the increasing fall of spinning snow.

“Why do you keep saying my name?” He’s so unused to it, from anyone, that it’s been jarring with him the whole bloody time.

“I noticed that her breathing calms for a moment every time I do. She’s still… on edge.  So let’s keep talking, shall we, Sandor? Calm her down.  Who is this Mr White, Sandor?”

“No one.  Just the assistant to two rich Manhatten types who’ve come here to gawp over the wildlife.” He says dismissively.

“ _All_ the wildlife, Sandor?”

As soon as this ‘Ned’ says it, he knows that his gut has been telling him the whole time that something was off.  There’s nothing concrete there yet, but why else would he have wondered if this tall, grim faced man was Mr White? Or thought that Mr White was the mysterious man he’d seen pretending to take photos by the river?

“Trust your gut, Sandor.” And Ned’s a foot from the wolf girl, whose been watching him with curiosity since he started moving towards her.

“Be careful! She attacked Arya!”

“I trust my gut too, Sandor.  I saw her come into this world, and I held her first.  Our histories tell us that the wolf is born inside the child, at the very same moment. And it grows up within the child until the wolf is ready.  So her wolf should know me too.”

Sandor almost snaps at the man, to point out the fucking obvious: that the wolf should have known Arya too by that bloody reckoning, but it still tried to gut her!

Ned stares at the wolf girl, entranced by her as she looks back at him, more warily. “She’s so beautiful.  I never got to see her wolf before she ran away from us...”  There’s so much pain in the man’s voice.  But then there’s ice cold steel.  “What caused this, Sandor? We were watching from across the lake.  Some dinner party?  What set her off?”

Sandor remembers the feeling of being her prom date, waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs and then feeling the world tip upside as he saw her dressed up for their night out.  Dressed up for him. And this feels like the other side of the prom experience, the moment when, in those American movies he might have seen once upon a time, the boyfriend brings the drunk, and possibly mistreated, girl home and tries to avoid facing the grim faced and furious father.  He’s bloody lucky Ned doesn’t have a shotgun at this moment.  Or is that what’s now strapped on his back?  It looks much longer though.

“Alcohol.  Silver plated cutlery.  And a woman who flirted with me in front of her.” He lists them, wanting the man’s anger over and done with.  Because Ned can’t possibly make him feel worse than he already does. 

He’s fucking wrong.

The older man pauses, his weathered face looking from Sansa to him for the first bloody time. “Arya said you wanted to swear by our old ways, by our old gods, to protect her.  I’d say that you’re not ready yet, wouldn’t you?”

Sandor would have preferred to feel this man’s fists rather than his disappointment.

“But you’re her mate.  So you’ll have to learn.”

Sandor’s eyes are drawn to the long shape on the man’s back again.  A suspicion grows.

“What would you have done if she _had_ hurt me? If Arya had been wrong?”

Ned reaches out towards the wolf girl, and she moves away.  But for a moment Sandor is reminded of the little wolf’s gentle touch towards the bear cub.  Ned has no wolf, Gendry told him, but he’s as close to one of them as a human can be.  Knows them better than anyone, Sandor supposes, having lost his brothers and his sisters to the werewolf and then to lonely deaths in the wild.  He knows exactly what Ned would have had to do if she followed after them and had killed him.

“Sansa was alone for six years.  But the wolf was pent up.  Now it’s running freer… because of you.  But you’re also the one who can help her adjust to the breaking of that dam.  And if you were gone, and by her hand as well… she would never be the Sansa you know ever again.”

“You wrap it up to stop the silver from shining in the dark.  Clever. What is it? Long sword or broadsword?” He’s surprised at his own  tone.  A grim faced northerner was walking around a snowy forest with a silver sword on his back like something out of the Arthurian books Sansa had suggested to him, and he was just calmly asking about its size!

“Broadsword.  It’s been in the family for as long as our histories can tell us.  Gendry’s been training with it.  You’ll need to as well.”

“Silver hilt too?”

“Only humans can wield it, yes.”

“It only has one purpose then?”

Ned looks intently at him. “Being a direwolf’s mate, being a Stark’s mate, well, it comes with responsibilities as well as pleasures.”

Sandor cringes inside.  Ned seems to look right through him with those wrinkled eyes.

“Aye, it does.”

“Scottish? Old family?”

“So I was told.  Soldiers for generations.”

“A Celt.  Not surprising.  Direwolves like the old blood, even if it’s strongly watered down.”

Or mostly mixed with alcohol, thinks Sandor bitterly.

“But it’s the individual the wolf choses.  And Sansa chose you…  And you’re not as decrepit as Arya made out.” He smiles grimly. “You’ll do.”

It might be as close to a compliment as he’ll get from this weathered looking man.  As close as he might get to an official welcome to the Pack.  But still, it’s more acceptance than he’s found in his life so far.  Except from the wolf girl.

“What do we do now?” He looks down at her, to where she’s crouching between the two men, but watching Ned with a tilt to her head as though she’s trying to recall something. “She’s remembered before.  Remembered me and her” He cringes again at what subject he’s bringing up with her bloody father. “But she didn’t remember attacking Arya.”

“The histories don’t have anything like this in them.  Only stories about the lost ones; the direwolves who went wild.  No one ever brought one back.  But Sansa’s attempt to kill her wolf has obviously failed.  Before she met you it was just breaking out under the moon, and now she’s changing more and more.  She’ll start remembering, even if she doesn’t want to.  Even if she’s rejecting her family as much as her wolf.”

Ned reaches out again to the little wolf and Sandor is struck with a punch of jealousy as she finally lets him stroke her cheek.  But this is her father. 

Ned stands, backing away from the two of them.  “The Pack is close if you need us.  We’ve camped to the South of town, not far from where you used to have your trailer.  You should get her home now, maybe she’ll change once she’s back in more familiar surroundings.”

He starts to go and then stops himself. “And if your gut is telling you something about this wealthy couple then keep an eye on them.  And we’ll do likewise.  And we’ll look out for this ‘Mr White’ as well.”

He nods to him, which might be the gruff man’s form of salute for a fellow warrior.  Or maybe that’s just some crap from the books Sansa’s had him reading. But still, he takes the man’s words to heart.  Well, the Hill woman did want to go hiking tomorrow…

Then Ned is gone, disappearing into the rapidly whitening darkness, the space where he was now quickly filling with softly drifting snow.

“Come on, girl.  Let’s get you home.” He picks her up, more because he wants her in her arms than because she needs him to carry her.  She nuzzles against him, raising a smile on his twisted lips.

It takes a little while to find the truck again, but she weighs nothing to him, is no burden, even with the increasing whiteness making it harder and harder to find the way.  But then they’re there, finally beside the truck and then leaping inside to turn on the heater for the shivering human.  She curls up in the passenger seat, completely out of place surrounded by seatbelts and headrests instead of pine trees and stars.

Driving back through the drifting white is unpleasant, but taking her home is not.  He fights the temptation to look back at her when she stares at him, keeping two eyes for the road, Ned’s voice in his head talking over and over about responsibilities.   But when the shimmer of silver catches his eye, he looks, just for a second, as Sansa wakes from the dream of the wolf.

“Oh!” She gasps. 

“What do you remember, girl?” He cuts to the quick. 

“The boathouse.  The lake.” She looks away.  “I’m very sorry.”

 _She’s_ sorry?!

“For being jealous.  For getting angry over nothing.  The silver cutlery was like holding onto wasps.  And I shouldn’t have drunk so much…” She babbles, and he’s glad that they’re pulling up to the guesthouse because then he can lean over and kiss her softly on her lips.

“Oh!” She exclaims again, but its more of a whispered surprise this time.

“I’m sorry too.  I know you don’t need looking after.”

“Maybe… maybe I might like someone to take care of me.” She smiles shyly, and he pulls of his coat quickly and wraps it about her in the cab of the truck, just as he’d done at the trailer last full moon.

“You know I don’t need this, don’t you though? I’m more than warm enough.” She lowers her eyes and looks up at him through those killer eyelashes.

“But there aint much of your dress left.  And Old Nan…”

“Old Nan can go-”

Before she can finish the attempt at a curse he’s kissing her again, pulling his own lapels to bring her closer against him.

“Yours or mine?” He asks lightly, forgetting for a moment what those words mean to the wolf girl.

“Mine.” There’s an edge in her voice. A tightness as though she’s holding back tears.  Oh god, or gods, he’d bloody well have her remember! He’d have her remember how they are together when her wolf is there too! But she only corrects herself. “I mean, my room.”

They race together through the creaking hall and up the elegant stairs.  If Old Nan is there, waiting, watching out for secret lovers, they don’t see her, and they don’t fucking care anyways. 

But for all their frantic speed in getting up to her room when they finally get there and rush inside they pause before moving towards each other slowly. The enthusiasm is still there, their desire for play and experiences with each other, even humour as she is distracted by choosing between the five boxes of condoms she has in a bag under her four poster bed.  But it is all tempered by a feeling of time stretching out before them.  If they had rutted before, then this is… this is more like ‘making love’.  They find each other beneath clothes and the remains of clothes, and then fit themselves together slowly, even if he then moves faster within her to urge long slow moans and gasps from her perfect mouth.  And when he finally comes within her, when she tightens about him and cries out again, his forehead is pressed against hers. 

When they are curled up together on her bed, he notices the changes.  When he’s been here before he’s been drowned in the pink and frills chosen by Nan.  He’d assumed Sansa would keep them, thought that they might suit the librarian.  But there are changes, small additions and subtractions as she gets closer to… herself? Wooden trinket boxes by a mirror with tiny holes for tiny keys.  Carnations and daisies standing tall in fat bellied glass bottles for vases.  The lamp on her bedside has been stripped of the tasselled shade, and the bare bulb glares.  A black and white Native American looking throw lies over plain sheets on the bed beneath them.  A dreamcatcher hangs on a wall. 

The last makes him smile as she rests against his chest.  It’s exactly the sort that teenage girls where buying the last time he paid them any attention, back when he wasn’t far off from being a teenager himself.  And then he remembers that she’s not had her own teenage years in which to buy junk versions of native traditions on a market stall like every other girl.  He remembers that she left home at fourteen and only found him as she’s closing in on twenty, or just past it.

“How old are you Sansa?”

“Does it matter?” There’s concern in her voice.

“Of course not.  Okay, then when’s your birthday?”

“I’ll be twenty one in May.  How old are you, Sandor?” she whispers.

“Does it matter?” But there’s more than a little fucking concern in his voice!  Her father seemed to have accepted the age gap better than he could have bloody hoped, if he’d ever thought about meeting the man.  But will it start to bother her?

“No.  Don’t tell me.” She runs her hand over his chest.  “You’re perfect anyway.”

“Perfect?!” He laughs darkly.  “Got a ruined face and my longest bloody relationship has been with the bottle-”

She stops him with a kiss. “Perfect for me.”

There’s no time for thinking then, only acting.  But later, when she’s finally sleeping against his chest, her fingers woven through the hair there as though she’s holding onto him, then he remembers the sword on Ned Stark’s back.  And the two rich twats who he’s going to be watching so bloody closely come tomorrow and their jolly little hike into the woods.


	17. Chapter 17

Sansa looks up at him warily, and he doesn’t fucking blame her. 

The lies he’d woven for her sat heavily in his stomach even as she lays lightly on it, stroking the flesh and muscles over his ribs with an idle hand.  Fuck Ned Stark and his fucking sensible, fucking _right_ plan! Keep your enemies close and all that shit! And he was almost certain the Hills were something like that, enemies, even if they were all smiles. Fucking sharks in fucking designer clothes more like, circling Bearpaw for their own fucking hidden reasons!

But then she smiles and he feels even worse. “If it’s for the money then of course you must keep them on side.”

“You don’t even have to come, girl.  Just mark up a map for me of where you think the bears’ll be.  It might even be for the best if we don’t find them and the Hills get bored of trudging through the woods and want to get back to their fucking Manhatten flat-”

“And if you get into trouble again?”

 “You can’t let them see you talking down a fucking bear anyway!”

“If I had to, I would.” Her slowly moving hand stops and grips onto his bare side. “I wouldn’t let you get hurt!”

“They’d see you!”

“So? It’s happened before. I just move on before they’re sure of what they’ve seen.”

The knot in his stomach becomes a lead weight.  “Where would you go?”

“North maybe.  Further North where there’s even less people about.”

Dread is icy cold in his veins.  Into the North, alone.

“But… maybe… well… I mean… you don’t _have to_ stay in Bearpaw do you?” Her eyes are wide and the question behind them shines through.

“You’d want me to come with you?”

“I could find you more animals to take pictures of… we could just hitch up the trailer and head North. Together?”

He kisses her, pulling her up his body to delve deeper into her sweet mouth, his hands tight about her back.

“Sandor! I can’t breathe!”  She laughs and he lets her drop back down, her body running down against his and stirring him again.

“Maybe they won’t even remember wanting to come with us? We might be alone after all.” She says lightly.

He thinks it’s too good to hope for, that it’s bloody unlikely they’ll forget their conversation last night the way she’s completely forgotten about her father and Arya after her change.  And besides, he does agree with Ned Stark, they need watching.  They either come on the hike, or he’s going to have to come up with an excuse to hang around Bear Island.  Fuck.

“I’ll shower and dress anyway.” She moves away from him and he grabs her hand to pull her back with a low growl. “Sandor!” She laughs, finally getting away from him.

While she showers he thinks about her.  Daft sod.  She wants him to come with her though.  She wants him. That’s so alien to his way of thinking that it needs turning over and over so he can see it from all angles. Does it mean that they mated now, as he is with the wolf girl? Arya was right, it was far simpler with wolves.  Sansa’s still not said that she loves him, even after he did, but she wants him to come with her.  She wants him. She wants him.  It echoes in his head and it pleases him in a way he’s never known before.

Then she’s out, a warm haze of steam following her as she wraps the towel in tighter and tucks the end in at the flushed skin of her chest, a dark red tangle of hair lying over one smooth shoulder . He lies naked on the bed and watches her comb the length out as she sits on the padded chair by the dresser.  He could stay here all day.  Or move quickly and drag her back to bed. But there’s something that he has to do.

“I’ll shower and dress in my room.”

She turns with a disappointed ‘oh’ on her lips.

“My clothes are still up there, little wolf.”

If she dislikes the slip of his tongue and the use of his name for the wolf girl, she doesn’t say. 

He throws on his muddied trousers and shirt and she looks embarrassed.  “I’m sorry you had to come crashing through the woods to find me, Sandor.”

And I’m sorry you don’t remember how much your father misses and loves you, he thinks.  But how would she react if he knew how close the Pack really was?

He gives her a quick peck on the lips as she finishes combing out that tempting hair and then he makes his way quickly downstairs to his own room, taking two of the wooden steps at a time.  He showers even faster, dresses warmly, before crouching at the wardrobe, digging out the locked box at the back of it.  The handgun is in good nick, but he gives it a quick once over anyway, palming bullets for it into deep pockets.  It goes into his pack, buried under another of his jumpers.  It’s not exactly easy to get a hold of in an emergency, but he needs to cover its scent with his own in case Sansa can pick it up.  He supposes that he could say it’s for the bears, if they get in trouble again, but he’s told enough lies to her today.

He’s heading back to her room with the pack on his back and his camera gear in hand when the grand chimes of the guesthouse’s front door ring out.  Old Nan is there suddenly, appearing from nowhere as nosey old women can when there’s strangers about.  She opens the door as he stands behind her, and she's smiling cautiously at the elegant couple in the fucking latest, and most expensive, outdoor gear.

“Oh! Good morning! We’re looking for- Oh! Sandor, there you are!” Melara strides in, her tight fitting leggings and her sleek jacket with its furred hood and zips almost as revealing in its own way as the red dress from last night.  Jaime strides in after her, smiling warmly at Old Nan, and taking her hand in greeting, making sure to use his good hand.

“Jaime and Melara Hill.  You must be the owner of this charming house! With the snow on it, it’s like something out of a lovely fairy tale!”

Old Nan is seduced, but Sandor fights back a sneer.

“Oh thank you, young man!” She babbles.

“Sansa!” Melara calls up the stairs to the girl as she appears at the top of them in her hiking clothes, her hair braided down her back. “I wanted to apologise, in case I made you or Sandor uncomfortable last night!”

“Oh, not at all.” Sansa joins them.  He feels her fingertips brush against his, and he takes strength, and patience, from the touch.

“You have to forgive Melara, she’s a terrible busy body!” Jaime beams and Old Nan looks as if she’s having a heart attack. “And other peoples’ love lives are a particular interest of hers.”

“I just want to know that everyone is as happy as us, my love!” Melara smiles back at the man and Sandor feels his irritation growing.

“Shall we bloody well go then?! The bears are bloody waiting…”

“Bears? Oh, I thought maybe we could look for something else.”

“This _is_ Bearpaw.” Snaps Sandor.

“Oh, but I would simply _love_ to find some wolves.”

Sandor stops in his tracks, his eyes flitting to Sansa’s.  She nods slightly. She can find them, of course.  But that’s not why he’s concerned.

“But I was going to take pictures more of bears today-”

“I’d give in.  Trust me, Melara always gets what she wants in the end.” Jaime slaps him on his shoulder and Sandor fights the urge to punch him in that smug face.

“Yes, I always do!” Melara smiles widely and Sandor clenches his fist as she laces her arm through Sansa’s and walks her out through the door.  “Tell me about yourself Sansa.  I want to know _everything!_ ”

***

The drive into the woods was fucking hellish.  Jaime had chivalrously agreed to sit in the back of the truck and let the ladies ride up front, but Sandor had been stuck in the small cab biting his fucking tongue as Melara interrogated Sansa with smiles and flattery instead of torture and threats.  He gave Sansa credit though, her backstory was well thought out, and she avoided inconsistencies.  Though, most of her stories of her travels were true he thought, she was just avoiding admitting that she’d run away from home first.

“And that’s when I came to Bearpaw.”

“An _interesting_ choice.”

“Not so much a choice as the only place the truck driver was going when I hitched a lift.”

“That’s so brave of you! And they made you librarian, just like that?”

“Well, no one else wanted to do it.  And I had some experience working in a bookshop at least.”

“Oh yes, that was when you were in Chicago?”

“No, Boston.  Well, the outskirts really.  That was the first place I lived when I flew across the Atlantic from Britain.”

“Of course, when you ‘crashed’ with that older woman you were talking about.  Asha was it?”

“Osha.”

“I have to say I am very jealous of your girlfriend’s courage Sandor.  I took a gap year, but I spent mine on the Amalfi Coast, in Paris of course, and then a few months in Switzerland skiing.  I would never have thought of ‘crashing’ on people’s couches or of hitching lifts on Alaskan roads.”

No, he thought angrily, because you weren’t a lonely fucking teenager running away from your family.  And from what you’d done.

Then they’re deep in the woods and they’re pulling on back packs, adjusting straps and setting off.  He expects the Hill woman to be useless, to twist an ankle part way there and then cry it all off.  But he’d thought that of the librarian too, and he was wrong on both accounts. She was fit, that was clear, keeping up a quick pace with Sansa as he found himself at the back with Jaime.

“Great view, eh?” Smirks the twat, and Sandor glares, only to see the man looking out over the trees as they climb higher rather than at the two rounded arses in front of them.

“You hunt, then.” He begrudgingly asks him, nodding towards the false hand.

“It’s harder these days, true.   But Melara and I spent a lot of time in the woods when we were growing up. She’s a crack shot-”

“When you were growing up?”

“We were childhood sweethearts.” Jaime smiles at memories and Sandor glowers. “First and only woman I have ever loved.  But you know that feeling, am I right?”

Sandor frowns. 

“I mean, it’s kind of obvious she’s the first who has broken through that beaten old armour you’re wearing.”

“Can’t say many have tried.”

“No.  Maybe not.” Jaime takes in a deep breath as they reach the crest of the slope, stretching out his arms and smiling at the view again. Twat.

“Can I tell you the secret to a happy relationship, Sandor?” There’s that companionable hand on his fucking shoulder again. “Give them what they want.  Whatever it is.  If its money and jewels, get them.  If its child after child, put them in their bellies when they ask for them.  If it’s something else, _anything_ else, bend over backwards for them.  Keep them happy and you’ll be happy too.”

“What are you two old women gossiping about back there? Keep up!” Shouts back Melara as Sansa looks apologetically at Sandor.

“Yes, my love!” shouts Jaime and they re-join the women.

They walk the path Sansa’s able to see that they are not, and Sandor wonders what Melara makes of her being their guide.  If she’s surprised she keeps her mouth fucking shout.  But not about everything else, as she’s digging again and again into the poor girl’s mind with delicate and pleasantly phrased questions.  It’s making him furious! But he doesn’t know how to stop her.

“Leave her be, Melara.” Says Jaime lightly. “The poor girl isn’t being interviewed for a job!”

Sansa shoots him a tentative smile as Melara stops and Sandor hates the cunt even more for saving her from his own bloody shrew of a wife when he couldn’t.

“We’re not far away now.  Don’t you think Sandor? This _was_ the way we came last time you brought me to see the wolves before, wasn’t it?” Clever girl, he thinks.

“Aye.  Not far.”

“How many are in the pack, Sandor?” Asks Melara.

“You said there were seven last time, including the Alpha female’s two yearling pups.  That’s right, isn’t it?” Sansa prompts.

“Aye lass, you remember well.”

“Will we be able to get close to them… like you did in the picture with the bear cub, Sansa? That was _your_ hand wasn’t it?”

“Melara has that picture hanging up over our den now, don’t you darling?”

“Yes, and I’m still amazed that you got so close.  Didn’t the mother bear mind?” Says Melara, raising an eyebrow.

“I… um… I had food in my other hand.  And the mother was distracted at the time…” Sansa attempts to answer.

“Look, do you want to see some bloody wolves, or stand about nattering all day like fucking fishwives!” Sandor snaps and this time he’s the one who gets the grateful look for saving her.  Fuck you Jaime Hill!

The Hills are cowed enough to keep quiet as they close in on where Sansa thinks they’ll be.  And not long after they set up in a good position, Sandor flipping open his tripod, a couple of sleek grey shadows move through the trees and into sight.  Its bloody strange behaviour for wild creatures, and he looks to Sansa who smiles shyly.  He wonders if they’ve caught her scent and been drawn her, but the Hills are apparently too busy gawping to be thinking about the strange quickness of their encounter.

He takes a few pictures anyway, catching Melara in a few of them this time.  He doesn’t entirely _not_ need money…

“Such gorgeous pelts” Whispers Melara.  “Is wolf fur soft, do you think?” Her hand is absent-mindedly stroking the fur on the hood of her jacket and a sick suspicion enters Sandor’s mind.  Sansa’s frowning, waves of disgust flowing from her even though the Hills are oblivious to the thinning line of her lips.

But they stick it out for a bit longer before Sandor claims he’s got as many pictures as he needs.  Sansa looks relieved even if Jaime and Melara protest.

“I want to get back into town and get a few beers down me! And no, I don’t need any bloody company!” He snaps at them.  Let them think he’s still the old drunk.  In fact a few beers would go down a treat, but he’s resisting still.  He suspects, however, that there’s some benefit in them underestimating him.  Sansa looks surprised though, but even more so when he throws her a secret wink.  It might well be the first of his life!

As they reach the truck again he’s not sure who has won this round of shadowed words and doubled meanings. He still trusts the Hills as far as he could throw the two of them together.  But they made no kind of move, and learnt nothing more than Sansa’s list of places she’s visited, and that her ‘boyfriend’ is a grumpy old shit who drinks in the day time.

So why does he watch Melara carefully as Jaime opens the truck door for her?  Why does he watch her for the merest hint of a triumphant smile?  Because he’s certain the older woman has gotten one over him still, somehow.

Back in town Sandor drops the Hills off by the flash car they have idling for them.  One of Jorah’s no doubt, with another one of his lackeys in the driving seat.  And then, for a bit, Sandor gets Sansa to his self again.

“I don’t like them.”

“No lass, neither do I.”

“I can’t tell you why, but they put my teeth on edge.  Why is she so interested in our relationship?”

“Jealousy?  Being married to a fop like that…” 

“Maybe.” But she doesn’t sound convinced. “Shall we go back to the guesthouse? Back to… bed?”

He steels himself for the next lie.  They’ve been falling like the snow from his twisted lips lately, and he always thought he weren’t the fucking type.  There’s things he certainly do for her, but he hadn’t bargained on lying being one of them, even if it’s for her own good.

“I’m going to take the truck round to where Robert's working.  She’s been making some strange noises.  But I’ll drop you off there first.”

“Oh” She sounds disappointed and it kills him.  “Don’t worry, it’s out of your way really. Just drop me here.”

He lets her out on the pavement, not far from Bronn’s, feeling like a shit and trying to make up for it with a deep kiss with her before she’s gone.  It puts some colour back into her cheeks at least, and a smile on those soft lips.

And then he drives around to the garage, finding Gendry under a jacked up four wheel drive.

“Afternoon, Sandor.  Problem with the truck?” Says the boy, eyes looking her over.

“Ned Stark said I got to have training.  For the sword.”

“Right.  _That_ sword.” Gendry looks downcast.  “Yeah, it’s a heavy bugger. I have some wooden practice swords weighted especially.  Come into the back yard.  It’s got a corrugated iron cover, no one will see us out there.”

“Do I fight you then? Learn to parry and all that shit?  Do I need to if it’s just for kill-” he stops himself, he can’t even say it.

“It’ll help with learning how to wield it. And I could do with the competition to be honest.  I used to train with Ned, but since I’ve been here watching Sansa we haven’t been able to.” Sandor follows Gendry to the concrete space, snow starting to drift in through gaps in the iron roof.

Gendry stretches and Sandor copies, Sansa’s face in his mind as he wakes up muscles and then grips the wooden hilt of the sword the boy passes him.  It seems to fit perfectly in his hand and he finds a dark smile on his mouth as the boy moves towards him.

“Are you ready?”


	18. Chapter 18

The air whooshes out of his lungs as the wooden blade connects with his side and it’s a good long fucking time before he can get enough back in again to turn the air properly blue.

“You did say not to hold back…” Starts Gendry apologetically.

“I know what I fucking said, boy!” He stretches out his arm above his head, pulling on the muscles and ribs on that side, testing for breaks.  Nothing.  He’s going to have a hell of a welt there which is going to be fucking hard to explain to Sansa later but nothing’s broken.  The boy’s reining himself in no matter what the little shit says.  He’s just better at it than him and it fucking pisses him off!

The wooden sword fit into his hand better than any gun ever had, and his head had suddenly been filled with foolish thoughts of being some kind of fucking natural.  Thoughts of all those bloody knights and warriors in Cornwell’s Arthurian books.  Until Gendry had smacked some sense into him with his wooden blade.

Turns out he made exactly the same mistakes as any other beginner.  He stood sideways in his stance which gave him only one side to attack from, unbalanced him and limited his swing.  He attacked by aiming for Gendry’s sword instead of pushing past the boy’s swings and hitting the boy instead of the blade.  He swung like a maniac without focussing on where he wanted the sword to be going two moves ahead.  He hated not being good at this!

He wiped the sweat from his brow with a nearby towel and rolled his shoulders, taking a his stance again. The boy circled back around, then raised his sword above his naked torso and attacked with what seemed to be careless abandon, except he caught Sandor’s own bare shoulder on the back swing, smarting the skin and turning it pink almost instantly, and making him lower his own sword suddenly.

“You shouldn’t feel bad.  I _have_ been doing this a lot longer than you.” The boy looks like he’s barely sweating too, just a sheen of light shimmering over his muscles like he’s some kind of fucking boyband singer in a shitty music video.  And he’s near hairless too, which makes Sandor feel even more like the old dog he is.  Bet the little shit shaves himself!

“I was already messing about with swords made from sticks when I was just a kid!”

Sandor knows that.  He remembers that it was this boy Arya was play fighting with when the psychopathic Joffrey turned on her, threatened her with a knife and brought Sansa’s wolf out to kill him.

“And I’ve been training with Ned for a _long_ time…”

Sansa. He’s doing this for _Sansa_. 

He lifts the wooden sword that’s been gaining pounds since he first held it, and attacks again, yelling, no, _roaring_ at Gendry, who backs away from the onslaught.  And then he sees it.  Sees the path of his blade, the path of Gendry’s, and sees how he can get his through the boy’s defences in two moves, like it’s some kind of fucking game of chess.  The boy doesn’t see it coming, the arcing flight of the blade where his no longer is, and then its Gendry ‘oofing’ as the air is pushed from him this time, even though Sandor holds back at the last moment.

“Fucking hell!” gasps Gendry, his sword clattering on the concrete ground of the yard, his arm still shaking from the impact.

“Yield?” Asks Sandor, smiling darkly.

“Yeah, okay, I _yield_.” Gendry rolls his shoulder, tests his side and then he smiles that goofy kid smile at him.

“You picked it up pretty quickly. I was battered by Ned for weeks before I started to get it.  Not sure the sword’s really my weapon, but I wasn’t that much better with the spear or the bow-”

“You’re shitting me?!”

“Ah, no.  The Pack trains with those too.  Osha mostly uses the spear, Ygritte the bow. Silver points on both. Jeyne has a silver knife, but she’s better used as a medic since she’s a trained nurse.” Gendry notices Sandor’s shocked look.  “We have guns too if that makes you more comfortable.”

Does it? He’s been around guns most of his life.  Been a soldier most of it too because of traditions and expectations.  Why is he shocked that others have done the same for the same reasons, but with different weapons?

“So, the Pack, do you dress like a bunch of Renaissance Faire freaks too? Go around adding E’s onto the ends of words, all ye olde fancie like?”

“Verily.” Says Gendry and Sandor finds himself laughing with the boy.

“Wait… _Osha_? The woman Sansa stayed with in Boston?”

“I told you, we’ve always been watching over her.”

Sandor’s brow knits for a moment.  How is Sansa going to react when she finds out that almost everyone she’s ever gotten close to has secretly been Pack?

“Let’s quit for the day.  Want to leave the truck here and walk back?”

Sandor feels the churn of a guilty conscience.  He lied to Sansa about the truck needing ‘Robert’ to look over it.  And he’s going to have to lie again about it needing to stay in the garage. Fuck.

But he agrees and Gendry flings him his top to put on.

The walk back to the guesthouse is a little more subdued than the last time they had staggered back there from Bronn’s, Gendry singing a ballad to the ‘amazing Arya’ and Sandor thinking about Sansa in pretty much the same terms but holding it all inside.  Both of them are shattered by the training, both favouring aching sides and tired muscles.  But it feels like a slice of the past to Sandor.  The best parts.  Huffing through the countryside with a comrade in arms at his side, worn out, sweaty, dirty, and bloodied sometimes.  But content.  This he liked, being a part of something.  Having orders to follow without the need for fucking thought.  Until the orders were to kill a child.

“Sandor.”  The warning in Gendry’s voice brings him back to now.  They’re not far from the guesthouse, the wooden fretwork of the gingerbread house just visible through the trees above them.  But there’s a car parked at the side of the road and a man standing by it.  A tall man, with a long dark woollen coat and a dark head of hair. 

“You hang back, let me deal with this.” He hisses to Gendry who starts to refuse. “Do as I say!” It’s the old voice, the commanding voice he’d used on his men back in the day, and he feels Gendry drop back.

The man is tall, but gaunt he sees as they get closer.  There’s a hollowness to his cheeks, and dark bags under his eyes.  Days of stubble on his thin jaw matches unkempt lank dark hair. 

“Mr White?” asks Sandor, but he knows for certain this time.  Ned could have passed for this man at a distance, but now he sees Mr White up close, he’s bloody sure he’s the one he saw by the river pretending to take photos.

“Yes… no… Yes, Mr White.  Mr and Mrs Hill request the pleasure of your company.” His voice is dull, flat, almost drained of expression.  He doesn’t sound like a New Yorker, but whatever accent he has seems washed out too.  Sandor can now see the black bags under the eyes are accompanied by wrinkles caused by some kind of tension.   This is a man barely holding himself together.  Sandor’s pulse pounds in his ears and he feels Gendry shifting behind him, readying himself.

“I’m not coming with you Mr White.”

“They said you’d say that.  They said I should then say that there is a gun in my pocket and I am aiming it at you.” Sandor sees that he does have one hand in his large coat pocket and there is certainly a shape in there.  Fuck. 

His gun is still buried at the bottom of his backpack.

Mr White grabs Sandor’s upper arm with one hand, pushing the coat pocket towards him with the other. The hand on his arm is gloved, but there’s something strange about it, but Sandor can’t concentrate on what it is, the gun digging into his side distracting him just a fucking little bit.

“Okay, I suppose I can be convinced to join the Hills for fucking afternoon tea then.”

It happens quickly, too quickly for Sandor to stop him.  Gendry is a sudden large mass, a charging shape between them and then there is thunder booming out between the three of them, Sandor falling back as Gendry falls and Mr White staggers. 

Sandor crouches down by Gendry and there’s blood.  Blood suddenly everywhere.  ‘Bloodied’ finally he thinks madly as he holds the groaning boy down and slams his palm against the hole in his arm.  The squeal of tyres leaving the scene makes him look up, but at the moment he doesn’t give a fuck about Mr White and the Hills.

“You stupid fucking, bull headed, twat!”

Gendry smiles wanely. “You forgot to add the e’s onto the end of the words…” He’s pale and shaking as he goes into shock.  Fuck!

“Stay still, I’ll get you help-”

“Gendry!” It’s a ragged screaming of the boy’s name, and a wild eyed girl is with them suddenly, pushing at him as she tries to take Sandor’s place, shoving him out of the way.

“I’m holding his fucking blood in, Arya!” She growls at him, but her head keeps snapping back to the prone shape of her mate as she pants.

“Where did you fucking come from?!”

“I wasn’t far when I heard the shot…” She’s gasping for air.  “Dad had sent me to bring you and Sansa in…  He said he recognised the Hills… Cersei Lannister-”

She’s too concerned about Gendry to recognise his confusion.  But it can fucking wait.

“Call an ambulance!”

“They’ll report a gunshot.  We’ll get him to Jeyne-”

There’s the sound of feet rapidly running down the road towards them and Sandor knows it’s her before he even looks up.  He’ll remember this sight of her later, remember how he stopped breathing when he saw her.  He’ll remember her running lightly in the soft, silken flowery dress and wonder if she’d put it on for him; if she’d been hoping that he was going to walk up the staircase and knock at her door later.  He’ll remember the flow of her hair in the air as she runs towards them and not away from them… yet.  He’ll remember the concern on her face taken over by surprise and confusion as she sees her sister.

“ _Arya?!_ ” She stops, the skirt of her dress still moving about her knees.  She’s forgotten her coat in the rush, forgotten to pretend that she feels the cold.  But there’s ice in _his_ veins as she looks at the three of them crouched by the side of the road.

He holds out his free hand to her.  “We’ll explain later, but Gendry needs help _now_.”

“ _Gendry?!_ ” She looks down at ‘Robert’, pale and covered in blood and she starts to shake, he can see it even this far from her.  Sandor rips at Gendry’s belt to use it as a tourniquet, so that he can get to her, but it’s already too late.

“I remember… _Arya_.  I remember… my father’s _here_?!”  Her voice quavers. “And you were _with_ him?!”

She stares at him, all the colour draining from her face as he starts towards her. “No.  No. No.” She mutters, stepping backwards from them all. “You’ve been with _them_ the whole time?”

“It’s not like that Sansa! They just want to help you! I just want to help you!” he pleads.

“Arya?” she says and he thinks she’s asking her to confirm it.  Doesn’t know what she’s seeing until it’s far too late.

“He’s right-” the girl starts, still holding Gendry to her.

“Gendry?” the boy can’t reply, he’s pale and shivering as she stares at him. Then her eyes dart to Sandor and he can see the silver in them.  And the red.

 “Joffrey?” she looks right at him, but through him, caught up in the past, lost in a day when Arya and Gendry were giggling and laughing, playing with sticks until Joffrey ruined everything and made her send her wolf into exile.

“No!” He shouts to her, but her change is coming, the silver light shimmering over her, but there is a blood red light mixed in with it, interlaced through the lines of silver.”I’m not _him!_ This isn’t _that_ day!”

She growls at him, the wolf girl snarling at him, tearing at the ground with her claws.  Joffrey was torn apart, will he be too?!

But then she’s gone, running from him, dress ripping as she transforms again, shifting into the wolf, and running up the road past the guesthouse, past the limits of the small town and into the woods.

“NO!” He yells, but it’s useless. He turns on Arya. “Get after her! Now!”

“I won’t leave him!”

“ _Go_ wolfbitch!”

“I _can’t_ leave him! He’s mine!” she growls at him, shifting enough to bare long white teeth at him.  He grabs at her then, rifling through her pockets for her phone, not caring that she batters at him with fists and scratches his face.  He bashes at its buttons, at its screen. “Make it work! Call your father!”

She calms herself down enough to do it, but then she’s crying. “Dad? Dad.  It’s Gendry.  Gendry’s shot-” she sobs. Sandor snatches it back from her.

“It’s Sandor. Sansa’s gone.  She’s _gone!_ ”

There’s a pause, and he can almost feel Ned steeling himself on the other end of the line. “Is she dead Sandor?” the older man’s voice is strained, quietened.

“No.  She ran.  She changed and she ran when she saw Arya and Gendry.” And me, he thinks, when she saw me as Joffrey.

“We’re coming now, Sandor.  All of us.”

***

Bronn’s is full of Starks.

Sandor is sweating again as he charges in to the bar, hot from running back down the hill alone.  Arya and Gendry had been swept up into a land rover by three strangers; two young blokes and a red haired girl who for a second is Sansa and everything is okay, and then he knows it’s not her and it’s not.  They’d followed his directions to the bar, away from Old Nan’s prying eyes, and used the key he’d given them, and now there are Starks fucking everywhere.

He hears Gendry moaning as the two young men, a reddish haired one and a darker haired boy, both with curls, lift him onto a table.  A heavily pregnant young woman is at his side immediately, working at cutting at his clothes with a cool efficiency. 

Others stand about watching, some of them just children.  There’s a messy looking boy of about twelve standing with an older woman with wild looking hair and a daft looking pasta necklace around her neck that almost has him laughing. Almost. There’s another boy, a gawky looking teen with glasses and a v-neck jumper sitting with an elfin looking boy of about the same age and a taller, older girl with curling, bobbed brown hair. There’s Ned standing with a woman in her fifties, elegant in a long blue woollen coat and a blue-grey scarf with a pattern of wolves on it.  Sandor can see the grim northerner holding her hand and the tears in her eyes as she watches the girl work on Gendry.  The girl, that’ll be Jeyne most like, the nurse and Robb’s mate, the pregnant one.

His head whirls as he tries to put these Starks in order, remembering details he’s had from Arya and Gendry, from Sansa even.  Was the auburn haired boy Robb, or was it the dark haired one? But that one’s now standing close to the red headed girl with the fierce face who Sandor now sees is very fucking different to Sansa given her redder hair and eyebrow piercings.

Then Mrs Stark… Cat wasn’t it… is walking towards him.  “Would you sit with me, Mr Clegane?”

It’s the librarian.  But not.  He certainly sees where Sansa got her stiff back and her proper fucking way of talking from, where the librarian learnt to hold her handbag as a shield, where she learnt to cut down a man with a look.  But Cat is not turning that coldness on him.  She’s smiling, trying to be welcoming.  He joins her in the booth.  _Their_ booth, his and Sansa’s.

“Bronn’ll be back from wherever he is soon…” Sandor warns.

Cat looks to Ned and he snaps orders to the two older boys. “Jon, outside perimeter, now.  Robb, check upstairs.” ‘Robb’, the redder haired lad, touches Jeyne gently on her shoulder as she works on Gendry and then runs upstairs.

“Can I go too? Can I?!” It’s the youngest boy, looking up at the woman he stands with.  The woman with the pasta necklace looks to Cat for approval.

“Go with Robb, Rickon.” Says the elegant older librarian. “But don’t get under his feet.”

Rickon changes, shifting to his between form in a second and then charges up the stairs after the oldest boy Stark.

“Mr Clegane…” She begins. “This must be very confusing for you.”

“You aint fucking wrong.” He regrets the curse straight away as the woman’s lips thin. “Sorry.  Yeah, it’s a bit confusing.  Didn’t quite gather that there were so many of you.”

Cat smiles and there’s warmth there.  A warmth he’s not sure he deserves given how he’s failed Sansa. “Robbs’ our oldest.  His mate is Jeyne who’s patching up Gendry.  Then there’s Jon… he’s Ned’s nephew, but he’s grown up with the others.” She pauses, there’s more to that story, and she’s not telling him.  But then he remembers the aunt, the direwolf who died, her child ripped out to survive her. “He’s outside now walking a perimeter.  Then we had Sansa.” She swallows the pain. “Then Arya, who you know, who is with Gendry.  Then there’s Bran in the glasses, sitting with Jojen and his sister, Meera…”

“The girl’s his mate?”

Cat pauses. “They were all in school together and the Reed children saw Bran change for the first time.  But Bran says his wolf hasn’t chosen yet. Ned thinks it might have done, but that Bran’s just not ready to tell us.”

“So, the boy then? What does Ned think of that? Disappointed to have one less breeding pair?” Sandor imagines his father’s, or his brother’s, fucking reaction if he’d ever come home calling himself ‘gay’.  He wouldn’t still be walking the next day, that’s for fucking certain!

Cat frowns. “Is that what you think of him?! Yes, he’s dedicated to the legacy of the direwolves, his family, their future.  But there’s more than one kind of legacy, Mr Clegane.  And we happen to think a happy child is a good thing to leave behind when you’re gone!”

He sees he’s going to be doing a lot of apologizing around these Starks, but then he’s surprise when she says it first.

“I’m sorry, Mr Clegane.  You don’t know us, and you don’t know what kind of people we are yet.  That’s why I wanted to talk to you.  Ned, he’s good with the wolves.  He understands them, he cares for them.  But sometimes he forgets the humans in the Pack need help too.  It can be very unsettling joining a family as ‘unusual’ as this one.  I know.”

He finds himself un-tensing, muscles unknitting and he nods at her. “Call me Sandor.”

“Cat.” They shake hands, and again he almost feels like laughing at the strangeness of the gesture as Gendry is being sewn up feet away.  But Sansa’s out there and they’ve got to find her!

“We will, Sandor.”

“Can you read my mind too? Is that some gift you have?!”

“No.  I’m just worried, as you are.  She’s my _daughter_ , Sandor.  But we lost her once and for a long time we thought that we would never be able to have contact with her again.  But then she met you.  And through you we’ve found her again.  Her and her wolf.”

“But she hates me! She knows I’ve been talking with you behind her back! And now she’s gone-”

“Ned’s brother, Benjen, never had a mate.  He never had someone who might be able to bring him back.  And she has you.  I have to believe that’ll make a difference!”

Sandor nods, eyes looking about the bar as Jeyne bandages Gendry’s arm, Arya holding his other hand and refusing to leave him as the older woman with the pasta necklace comforts her.

“And who’s that?”

“Osha.”

“Sansa’s roommate in Boston.”

“Rickon’s primary school teacher.  Until his first change happened.  She was looking after him when I was late picking him up one day and he was worried.  And he was only _six_.  It was a… _difficult_ time. But she can calm him down when he gets a bit… wild.”

“Is she his _mate_?!”

Cat smiles, and it’s her daughter’s wolfish look. “The age gap isn’t so different to the one between you and my daughter you know, Sandor.” She says archly.

He shifts uncomfortably under the woman’s blue gaze. “That’s… that’s… _different_! Sansa’s a grown woman!”

“No.” She laughs at his discomfort “No, Osha’s not his mate.  Rickon’s wolf hasn’t chosen yet.  But Osha’s family now, she’s Pack. And when you have six children all getting their wolves in the space of a few months it really helps to have an extra pair of hands around.  Though, keeping Arya out of Gendry’s bedroom would have required several arms of the military…”  She looks to where Gendry lies on the table, weakly murmuring to the scared girl.

Ned coughs politely then, and it’s like an officer has walked into the barrack room the way the Starks go on the alert.   Robb and Rickon return then, just as the others are standing up with their mates and ‘maybe’ mates, and the older boy returns to his pregnant mate as Rickon near bounces to Osha. Bran, the ‘dreamer’ Sandor remembers, stands right between Meera and Jojen, and it’s tempting to try and read the body language there to see if Cat is right.

“Right.” Says Ned, pulling a large map from a pack and spreading it out on another table. “Any suggestions?”

Sandor stands and walks over.  “North, she’ll have gone North.  Away from people.” Away from me, he thinks darkly.

Ned frowns down at the map, tracing lines with a finger, lines moving away from Bearpaw. 

That’s when Bronn and Margaery return, a flustered Jon behind them.

“Now what the _fuck_ is going on here?!”


	19. Chapter 19

“Let me see if I’ve got it all straight now.  The bitch on wheels, Melara Hill is actually Cersei Lannister mother of this kid, Joffrey, who died in an accident that might of, kind of, been Sansa’s fault.  And Sansa ran away from home six years ago, feeling all guilty about it.  And now Cersei’s tracked her down.  And her PA shot Gendry when you wouldn’t go with him to meet with her and her husband Jaime.  And Sansa ran away again.  And these folk, the Starks are her family, come to find her again.  Is that all of it?”

Sandor pauses before he lies. “That’s about the sum of it.” He knows it sounds like a bunch of crazy bullshit, but Bronn’s not flinching from it at all even if Margaery has her lips pursed as the three of them sit in the booth, Sandor facing the two of them as they are snuggled together, her hands in Bronn’s.

“Uh huh.” Says Bronn, staring him dead in the eye.  “Well, she wouldn’t be the first person to end up in Bearpaw with an assumed name and a lost history. Everyone knows ‘Bill’ of Bill’s diner ain’t entirely telling the truth about his past.  And that phoney story about losing his eye to a carelessly cast fish hook…”

Sandor feels the Starks standing and sitting about the bar relax a little, the tension in the air going down a few notches.  When Bronn had had made it past the boy, Jon, and his inept attempts at distracting him, storming into the bar with an equally het up Margaery, Sandor hadn’t known how it was going to go down.  But Bronn’s overall laid back nature seemed to be in their favour.  Especially now that the bloke has an open beer in one hand, Margaery in the other, and can see that this flood of strangers haven’t done any damage to his precious bar.

“But I still don’t think that you’re telling me the whole story, old boy.” Bronn says, deadpan serious as he stares at Sandor.

“Eh? Why’s that?” Sandor feels his heartbeat speed up again.

“Because there’s a naked boy crouched on my bar and he seems to have a fucking tail.”

The Starks turn as one towards the smirking Rickon. 

“Rickon Stark!” Shout Cat and Osha together.

“What?! The old guy’s obviously Team Sansa!” Osha grabs him and pulls him down from there roughly, grabbing his clothes from where they lie and yanking him away from the others to force them back on him. “Gendry said he was alright!” Rickon shouts as the shirt goes back over his head.

 “So, is there anything else you want to tell us Sandor?” says Margaery archly.

“Werewolves.” He says simply, giving up.

“Werewolves.” Bronn deadpans again.

“Direwolves.” Says Ned.

“Best not to complicate things at the moment, Ned.” Says Cat.  “ _Werewolves_.”

“Okay. Werewolves then.” Bronn shrugs. “But it’s still about Sansa isn’t it? Tail or not.  The boy’s right. We’re on her side.”

“We have been since we first saw you with her, Sandor.  Because Bronn likes you.” Margaery offers.

“Come on, girl, don’t make the men blush.” Bronn shifts uncomfortably. “And Gendry’s alright.  And maybe these folks are alright by me too.” He looks at the horde of Starks. 

“We have to get moving.”  Says Ned. “Before we lose the light.”

“How are you tackling this? Three Sixty search pattern?” Asks Bronn, the military showing through the affable smile.

“We’ve got an idea she’ll be heading North.”

“She’ll avoid people, towns, roads as well, most like.” Growls Sandor.

“Even so, that’s a lot of land to cover.” Says Margaery. “You need eyes in the sky as well. Orell’s got a chopper at the airfield… I can see if he’ll take me up in it.”

Bronn gets up and walks to the bar, smiling at the unrepentant Rickon as he does.  He reaches back underneath it and gets out a shotgun.

“I call this second meeting of the Concerned Sansa Watchers Association to a close.”

Gendry laughs darkly, then groans as it disturbs his wound.  Ned looks confused. “I don’t understand?”

“Forget about it.” Growls Sandor, but he throws Bronn a grateful look. “Time to go.”

“I’m staying with Gendry.” exclaims Arya.

“No… you’ve got to go! They need all the wolves to track her!” He tries to sit up on the table, to protest.

“They’ll have Robb, Jon, Bran and Rickon!”

“No, Rickon’s staying too.” Says Cat, “And that’s final.”

“Mum!”

“She’s right, little man.” Says Osha. “But I’m coming.”

“I’ll stay with Gendry and Rickon” Says the pretty little brunette, Jeyne, a hand on her huge belly. “Osha’s got some basic first aid skills now anyway, and I don’t think I’d be able to keep up.”

“Can we just go!” snaps Sandor, and he feels Margaery’s hand on his shoulder.

“Right, pack up.” Ned speaks and suddenly they’re all moving, gathering belongings and getting out in quick time, Robb kissing Jeyne and Osha ruffling Rickon’s hair.

Outside Sandor is following the Starks to their cars and trucks when Jorah bloody Mormont intercepts him, jogging up to him, near skidding on the inch or two of snow on the pavement.

“Sandor!”

“Not now, Mormont!”

“Have you seen the Hills? Melara and Jaime?”

“No I bloody haven’t!” Thank fuck!

“They got a call and left suddenly.  I wanted to see if everything was alright…”

Shit. Shit. Shit.

“Haven’t seen them.” Sandor cuts him down dead, and then catches up quickly with Ned. “The Lannisters got a call and have left the island.  From their Mr White no fucking doubt. I thought the bastard had gone by the time Sansa turned up, but maybe he saw after all…”

Ned frowns. “That’s not good news.  But they don’t have trackers like ours, no one does.  We’ll find her first.”

***

Somehow Sandor’s ended up in a Range Rover full of Stark women. 

The boy Starks had gone ahead with Ned which left him with Cat, Osha, Ygritte and Meera. Jojen had somehow snuck into the Bronn’s truck with Bran as Margaery shanghaied Mormont and charmed him into giving her a lift to the airfield.

Sandor felt their curious eyes on him the whole bloody time Cat drove them in the convoy of cars and trucks.  Gendry must have grown up with this attention as Arya’s friend and then as her mate, but he was more used to women’s eyes finding him, admiring his bloody size and muscles, and then dropping away as they caught sight of his fucking scars.  But the Starks… or the Stark, Reed, Wild and Wall… were all unabashedly looking at him with curious eyes.  Even Cat used the rear view mirror as she drove to look back at him wedged between the pierced Ygritte and the long limbed Reed girl.

“Seen enough yet?” He growled, staring straight ahead.

They didn’t even look embarrassed.

“Did Cat give you the patented ‘Stark Sex Talk’ yet?” asks the fiery red head, Ygritte.  The one who travelled with Sansa in Europe.

Meera groans, “I’ve had it and Bran isn’t even-  I mean, we aren’t even _mated!_ ”

“I’ve had it twice.” Says Ygritte smugly.

“Come on girls, stop teasing him.” Snaps Cat.

“So you haven’t talked to him about it yet?” Asks Osha.

“It’s hardly the time! Sansa’s in danger!”

“We’ll get her back and then the two of them can get on with what they were doing up at the guesthouse.  Loudly.”

“That’s my daughter, Osha!”

Osha shrugs. “Starks run about naked all the bloody time and you’re still all bloody prudes.”

“Not _all_ Starks run about naked, Osha!”

“So what do I need to know?” snaps Sandor, just to get it over with. “If this is the bit where you tell me to use protection… well, I’m a grown fucking man!”

“That he is.” Whispers Ygritte to Meera. Right in front of him!

“It’s more about the phsyiological differences between direwolves and humans…”

“Cat! Jesus! You make it sound like male direwolves are well endowed or something!” Osha laughs and there’s more fucking giggling from either side of him!

“That’s not what I meant!” Cat sighs, “You’re the teacher, Osha, maybe you can explain it better-”

“I taught primary school! I think Sandor’s beyond needing to know how to do sums and tie his shoelaces!”

Cat takes a deep breath and speaks quickly. “The version that the girls get is this… the direwolf male’s seed is strong.  So be careful, because you can get pregnant very, very easily.”

“Even if he’s a Stark without a wolf, eh Cat?” smirks Ygritte.  Sandor mentally counts the Stark children, not including Jon. Jesus!

“Indeed.” She says ruefully. “But for the men mated to female wolves; you and Gendry, you get another talk.  Where I tell you that… that the human seed is not strong enough.”

Sandor couldn’t feel more fucking uncomfortable if there was a fucking spike up his arse!

“It might be difficult for Sansa to get pregnant. If not impossible.”

“It’s sexist, that’s what it is.” Snaps Ygritte.

“We haven’t exactly talked about children, Cat.” Sandor says in a low, dangerous voice. “But if she ever wants them with me, we’ll find a way. I don’t know… adoption, whatever.”

Meera utters a low “aww” and Ygritte smiles.

“But Jon’s mother was a direwolf, right?” he asks.

“Yes, Lyanna, Ned’s sister.  But we don’t know much about the father.”

“So, it’s possible?”

“It’s possible.” Says Cat. “If we can get her back.” Her voice is low, full of pain. Osha places a hand on her shoulder.

Then they’re stopping, pulling up behind the other cars and trucks down a long track buried in snow already. Ned’s there, with three wolves being warily watched by Bronn, his shotgun slung over his back. One of them is a glowing white, bright even against the snow, but with baleful red eyes.  It bounds up to Ygritte who runs her hands through its fur before turning to the open boot of a car to pull out a strange spider like bow that seems to be made entirely from gears and strings. Meera greets her brother Jojen as he passes her a spear, silver flashing at the end of it.  Which reminds Sandor of the great sword Ned’s carrying, wrapped up in black cloth still. The sword he’ll have to take up if Sansa’s completely gone from them.  Because he’s the one who’s going to do it, and do it quickly, if it comes to that.  He owes her that much.

“Robb, Jon, and Bran’ll run North, spreading out as they go.  We’ll wait until there’s a contact, some sign of her and then we’ll join them.”

“So we just wait?!” Sandor barks.

“We can’t keep pace with them, not off road through the trees.  They have GPS’s, when they find something they’ll change back and activate a built in signal.” Sandor notices the collars the wolves are wearing.

“And we just twiddle our fucking fingers until then?” Sandor snaps, and then Bronn’s there, by his side, trying to calm him.

Osha looks over at him, perched on the bonnet of a truck, sharpening her spear.  “No.  We get ready. For whatever we’ve got to do.”

 “I understand your impatience Sandor.  But we’re only human, we can’t keep up with them. But if she’s gone North, she’ll have to have come through this part of the valley. ” Ned turns to the wolves. “Go on, go!”

The wolves wheel round and dart off into the trees, breaking through them at three different points.

***

Its dark, and its cold.  And he is fucking sick of waiting for the beep of the alarm on the GPS monitor Ned handed to him hours back.  He cradles it in his hands, staring into the baleful green light of it, staring and staring.

“Food’s ready.” It’s Meera, Bran’s friend.  “It’s not much, just tinned beans and sausages.  But you should eat.”

“Do you think she’ll have stopped to hunt?”

“Probably.  If she’s mostly wolf at the moment she’ll have to, instinct will drive her.” The skinny girl sits next to him. “I understand.  I really do.  But you have to eat.”

Sandor looks up, glaring at the rest of the Stark camp through his hair.  Cat and Osha are working at the fire.  Jojen and Ned are discussing something on the map as they sit on logs nearby.  Ygritte’s unrolling tents.  They all look like they… _fit_ together.  Even Bronn’s slid into the life, patrolling the dark edges of the camp with his shotgun.  Is this what she saw, after her first change? The way it all just made sense for them while she was confused and jumbled up inside by her wolf and Joffrey’s death?  But there’s safety here too, if you can get used to the strangeness of it all.  If _she_ can.

“It was hard for all of us at first.  Well, Ygritte makes out it wasn’t, but it was.  Jojen and I were just kids when Bran had his accident…”

“Accident?”

“Oh! Maybe Sansa didn’t tell you.  Just before she ran away Bran fell out of a tree when we were all messing about on the Stark estate one day.  Doctor’s said he’d be in a wheelchair for life. But then he got his wolf… and he could _walk_ again!  He terrified me and Jojen when we came to visit him at the house and found him running about his room as the wolf! But getting his wolf _healed_ him.”

“And getting hers broke Sansa apart?”

“I think so.” She pauses, then sighs sadly.  “Bran was happy again, _really_ happy! And Arya was desperate to get her wolf too.  She didn’t think it was terrible when Joffrey died… she thought it was ‘exciting’ or something. So Bran’s running about as the wolf, Arya’s growling and going about on all fours all the time trying to force her wolf out-”

“And Sansa feels like the odd one out because she hates her wolf? Where were her parents? Why didn’t they fucking help her?!”

“They were trying to fix the Joffrey situation.  Dealing with investigators and lawyers. Trying to make it all go away.”

“But it was _Sansa_ who went away.” Sneers Sandor.

“They were doing their best. They suddenly had four young direwolves to control, to teach, with two more due to change soon after.  And there were police calling round all the time trying to figure out how a wild dog got Joffrey. They really did their best-”

He looks down at the girl. “Are you his mate? They don’t really know for sure, you know that right?”

She blushes.  “No.  No, I’m not. But there’s more to being Pack than just being a wolf’s mate.   And being Pack means caring for _all_ the pack.”

“I can see you care about Sansa, you’re here aren’t you?!”

“I meant you, Sandor.  Now, come and get some food.” She gets up, and he’s about to put down the GPS and join her when it starts beeping.  Ned’s over in a second, looking at it.

“That’s not that far from here!” Ned looks around at the others.  “Move, now!”

“What have they found?!” barks Sandor, grabbing his backpack with his gun still buried deep in it.

Ned pauses.  “It might just be her scent. Or some of her kill…”

“Or it could be her body, couldn’t it?”

“Don’t think like that, Sandor… She’s not gotten far.  She’s not been out here long.  It could be her.”

But there’s a darkness that’s followed him all his life, starting with his father, then his brother… then his time killing at the orders of others.  He can’t believe that this time things will be different.  That something as bright and shining as the wolf girl, as Sansa, can possibly be his to keep.  The Hound doesn’t get a happy ending, not after all the final, absolute darkness he’s brought to others as well.

They’ve picked up the camp and are quickly marching together through the snow towards the trucks when the first shot cracks into the air.

“Stand still!” A woman’s voice rings out in the darkness. “Don’t you move a fucking an inch closer.”

Three dark shadows stand on the snow covered track by the trucks, one of them crouching suddenly with a flashing knife in his hand to slash at their tyres. In the dark Sandor can barely make out their faces, but there’s only three people it could be.

“Cersei.” Says Ned darkly.

“Ned Stark.  Cat.  So nice to see you again outside of a courtroom. You’ll not have met my brother before I think.  Jaime Lannister, these are the parents of the little bitch who killed our- who killed Joffrey.”

“What’s this about Cersei? Revenge?”

“Well, _yes_.”

“Robert always said you were a cruel woman.”

“Robert said a lot of things.  When he was drinking.  And he drank a lot after Joff died.” The gun in her hand never wavers, she knows what’s she’s doing.  She’s prepared. “He told me, before he drank himself dead, how the Starks are such an _interesting_ family! And Sansa’s such a _special_ girl! He knew and he let her _touch_ him with her filthy paws… Robert let her _kill_ him!”

Sandor growls. “You won’t find her, you fucking bitch!”

“Ah, Mr Clegane.  We were so disappointed when you refused our invitation.  If we’d had you I’m certain Sansa would have come quietly.  But this way I fear that there’s going to be a bit of a struggle. Some people might get hurt. Quite badly.”

He hears the slow stretch of Ygritte’s bow behind him.

“Don’t even think about it, girl. I’ll take down Sansa’s mate before you can notch an arrow to the string.”  He can almost feel her vicious smile in the darkness. “Oh, you should have come with us, Sandor.  I had all these lovely plans for your offspring-”

“I’ll kill you!” Snarls Sandor.

“I wanted to make her feel the pain of losing a child.   Over, and over again.”

“Cersei… this isn’t what we talked about…” There’s uncertainty in Jaime’s voice but she ignores him, just passing him the gun without comment.  He trains it on them all, but he does waver slightly as he holds it.

“But I’ve just realised that we don’t need you after all, Sandor.”

She turns to the taller of the dark shadows standing with her, Mr White. 

Sandor can just make out her working at something at the man’s wrists, and then he sees silver shining in her hands as she moves back from the tall man. _Cold_ , Sandor remembers, the man’s hands were cold, even through the gloves Mr White wore as he grabbed him on the road.

“Why don’t Starks interbreed, Ned?  What is the child of two direwolves _like_? Some kind of monster? A _freak?!_ ”

“ _No!_ ” Screams Ned, and Sandor hears Cat’s sob before he realises what the Lannister bitch means.  And he knows who Mr White _is_ , who he _must_ be.

 “Hunt the she wolf down and bring her to me.” Snaps Cersei to the man.

The silver light shines over the tall gaunt man as he rips off his clothes and changes, racing off into the dark woods, a howl coming from his mouth that freezes the blood in Sandor’s veins.

Cersei casually twirls a silver cuff about her finger. “Silver.  Direwolves will follow any order when they’re forced to wear it, but it stops them from changing forms, doesn’t it? Tricky.  Unless you realise that a wolf is just an untrained dog.  And Benjen’s had so much training now, he’s such a good _doggie_ now, that he doesn’t have to wear silver _all_ the time.

Sandor shudders, pity for the man flooding him, his days as the Hound flashing before his eyes. Training beaten into him by his father, his brother, his superior officers…

“Where… where did you find him?” Ned is a broken man, Cat trying to support him as tears lie on his cheeks.

“This quaint little black market in the Far East. It’s amazing what you can buy if you have enough money! There’s not much left of that now of course, but Sansa and Benjen’s pelts might raise a bit too.  And they grow back _so_ fast-”

The knife is deep in her chest before any of them can react, Jaime cradling her as she falls, their two dark shapes becoming one as they fall together into the snow, her blood splattering it with red.

“I can’t Cersei… I can’t…” sobs the Lannister man.  “I can’t…”

There’s a coughing burbling sound coming from the bitch’s mouth as she dies, Jaime sobbing over her.  “You weren’t like this.  You weren’t.  You _weren’t_!”

Ned snaps out of his grief turning to them as Cat supports him. “Run.” He says hoarsely. “Run!” he shouts.

And then Sandor, Bronn, Jojen, Ygritte and Meera are charging off into the darkness after the lost Stark, Benjen.  Spears, bows and guns in their hands.


	20. Chapter 20

The snow covered trees whip past them, blurring as he concentrates on keeping pace with the Reed kids and Ygritte.  Fuck even the primary school teacher is fast, and Bronn aint no slacker even for a man who’s stood behind a bar for years.  But Sandor’s glad of the runs he’s been doing, glad that he’s been keeping the old blood pumping, stopping it from seizing up in his veins, because he _can_ keep up.  He _has_ to.  Because the dark shape out in front of them is hunting _her_.

Cersei was a fucking fool though.  Her attack dog’s a fucking mess after her treatment of him, and they can see Benjen ahead of them veering wildly and snapping at invisible enemies as he runs.  _And_ he sticks to two legs when four would easily outpace them.  The shattered parts of the Stark uncle aren’t working together like they do for the Stark wolves, and that fact reminds him of Sansa and he speeds up again, because even a broken wolf has sharp fucking teeth.

They burst through the trees to a steep snow draped slope running down to a river.  The water is narrow and raging unlike the flat calmness he parked his trailer by a hundred years ago.  Back when he thought he could spend the Summer and Winter drinking cheap beer and taking the occasional picture of a bear.  But even the rushing crashing of the water can’t block out the sound of the growling and barking of the wolves, a sound that wakes the terrified caveman in him.

There is a storm of fur and teeth as two wolves fight, rolling and leaping over each other, trying to get the other to submit.  Jon’s white fur should have grabbed his eyes straight away, but he’s looking at the reddish brown of Sansa’s, staring at the blood sleeking her fur as she goes for the white wolf’s flanks and digs her teeth in deep there, making him yelp aloud.  Sandor barely even notices the other wolf that’s limping away, smaller and male, until Benjen finally shifts into a large black wolf and crashes into it, rolling it over and over towards the water’s edge.

“No!!” Screams the Reed boy, and Sandor’s yanking the spear from his hands and pushing his backpack into them instead, shoving bullets from his pockets at him. “Gun in there.” He snaps at the boy before he runs over to the fray, holding the spear low, a blood memory of fur clad hunters awakening in his bones.

“Sandor!” Bronn yells as he tries to find a way to use his shotgun without peppering all of them in the melee.  Ygritte is loosing silver arrows towards the black beast, but the wolves roll and they pierce the dirt instead.

Sandor jams the butt of the spear between Sansa and Jon, but she turns her head to snap jaws about the wood and splinters right through it. Spinning it about he lays the flat of the leaf shaped spear head against her side, frost spreading quickly across her pelt as the silver touches her.  He sees Osha and Meera out of the corner of his eye, trying the same thing with the black wolf and Bran, pulling the large male away from the young wolf with the flat of the silver.  Benjen’s wolf skitters away, trembling, his tail between his legs at the sight of the shining metal, but Sansa’s is defiant, growling at him as she stands still, taking the punishment of the silver.

“Come on girl!” He shouts at her. “Come back!”

Sansa leaps back and circles, growling at the tip of the spear as it hovers in front of her.  Then she charges at Bran, Jon’s white on her tail as the three of them tumble into another scrap, the wounded boy wolf yelping at the bottom of the pile.  And then there’s another fucking wolf! Robb’s most like, joining the pile as Osha and Meera keep Benjen at bay.  The black’s snapping, both at them and at the empty air, scratching at the earth and preparing to race at the two women.

“Don’t you even think about it!” Shouts Meera at the dark wolf and for a second Sandor remembers the librarian staring down the bear that charged them.  But Sansa’s got the wolf inside her, and Meera’s just a human girl… so the whine that comes from the black beast fucking surprises him, but it’s probably the threat of silver in his face from their spears.

But then Benjen suddenly twists and charges back towards the treeline and the two figures running through it, one of them pulling a broadsword from his back, the silver of it glinting in the moonlight.

Ned is quick, but the wolf is quicker, shifting at the last minute into the wolf man and tumbling out of the way of the slow moving broadsword, ducking under and up behind the silver sweep of it to rip claws across Ned’s chest before darting away. Cat screams.

The pile of wolves stop, righting themselves as the boys change to run to their father as he collapses.  But Sansa’s wolf lies on the ground still, panting heavily, and Sandor crouches quickly at her side, reaching out for her. “Sansa, please.  _Please_.”

From a great distance away he hears Cat’s sobs, hears the women of the Pack running to Ned’s side, hears Osha shouting out orders. 

But he doesn’t hear the black wolf until it’s too late, and then his back is on fire. 

He remembers his face burning.  He was young then but still he remembers the pain and the smell.  There’s no smell this time but his back hurts just as bad as his face did so it must be the fucking fire again.  There’s a weight on him there too as he gasps, a weight on his back that vanishes suddenly and then he’s so light that he feels himself float away into the sky, even as his hands crash into the dirt and snow, ice and small stones digging into his palms.  His back’s on fire and somehow he notices that there are tiny pebbles jammed in his hands.  He lifts them to hold them before his eyes, seeing each small bit of grit as an entire fucking planet… and suddenly her delicate hands are folding about his.

“Sandor?…Sandor, your back?!” It’s Sansa, crouching in front of him, fear in her eyes as she forces out the words.  But fuck she’s beautiful.  There’s gashes on her bare flesh but in the moonlight they are dark prayers written on the white skin of a wild goddess. And the black wolf creeping towards her should beware, because the goddess seems very angry about something.  His back? What is it about his back? His head spins…

And then she’s gone, leaping at the black wolf and burying her teeth into his muzzle, not even changing from her human shape to do it.  He tries to back away but she’s holding him close to her and it almost looks like an embrace as she makes him yelp and whine.  And then he changes, back to the man who finally shakes her off and scrabbles backwards away from her in the dirt, her teeth marks still red and bleeding on his face.

“Mine!” the human girl screams at him, and Benjen cowers.  “ _Mine!_ ”

Sandor staggers up, sweat sticking his clothes to his back, and marches to the rest of them, ignoring their crying and their stares as he picks up the sword and walks back to the man on the earth, dragging the tip of it through the dirt because it is so _fucking_ heavy…

But he can lift it, even if his back screams, even if he is sweating a fucking river back there.  Because this has to end.  He has to protect her!

Benjen is muttering something, long hair plastered in mud across his face, huddling naked in the dirty churned up snow under Sansa’s ferocious gaze.

“Sandor! Stop!” Ned’s wavering voice cuts through the red rage fog as he lifts the sword to take the man’s life.

“Yours… yours...”Mumbles Benjen before the blade can fall. And then she’s there, between them as the weight of it swings it down towards the man’s unprotected body, reaching up with both hands to catch the silver, screaming as the edge and the frost cut into her.  And he drops the sword and falls sideways to the dirt and snow.

She cradles her hands and shuffles on her knees to him, turning at the last minute to curl within the shape of him. And it’s all he can do to raise his arm and pull her to him, it takes all the strength he’s got left to give.

Then they’re surrounded by people.  And even the wolf in Sansa doesn’t react as Osha fusses over her mate’s back, ripping into the remains of his jacket and exposing the fire to the cold.  But it isn’t fire, it never was.  He can feel the individual lines of pain on his back now, the score lines of the claws that drew themselves down him as he knelt over Sansa.  More fucking scars he thinks, laughing.  But it’s a cough that comes out of his mouth making Sansa shift under his arm.

“Osha?” Asks Bronn, and there’s concern in his voice, the soft git.

“They’re not as deep as I feared. Him and Ned have got fucking thick skins.  Must be a northern thing.”

“I’m Scottish you daft woman.”

“Don’t call your medic daft, Sandor.  She might not patch you up right!” She snaps back, but there’s relief in her tone too.

“Sansa?” He asks, and she stirs, uncurling from the hollow of him. 

“I’m here, Sandor.” Her voice is small, weak, but it’s hers. “I’m here.”

Sandor tries to move to look about, receiving a soft bump on his head from Osha for the effort. “The black wolf?”

“Benjen’s limped off to the water’s edge. The wolves have him surrounded, and there’s a silver arrow aimed at his forehead, but the fights gone from him.” Bronn says grimly.

“Ned?”

Osha pauses.  “I think I’ve got him sorted for now, but we’ve got to get him back to Jeyne so she can sew you two up.”

Sandor nods and lets her work, feeling Sansa’s body heating his even if the ground is trying to steal his warmth.  He has the red of her hair in his face again and that’s all that matters, not a few fucking scratches from a bloody feral werewolf.

“Okay, let’s try and get you upright. Bronn?” Osha and Bronn work together to right him, making him groan with the pain and Sansa darts away, still holding her hands away from the ground, to crouch nearby and watch him.

“Are you healing? Your hands…?” he asks, remembering the sickening sound it made when the edge caught her hands and the frost and ice crunched there.

“It’ll take longer because it was silver… but they’ll heal.” She whispers hoarsely.

“Right you next then, missy!” Osha says pulling strips of bandages from a pack and starts washing Sansa’s hands with water from a canteen as the girl keeps her eyes on Sandor. Finally she breaks their connection and looks at the woman treating her wounds.

“You too, Osha? You were watching too?”

“Yes, me too.  We can shout it out later, but you know your family only wanted the best for you.  So did Sandor, so don’t go too hard on the great lump now.”

Osha pauses as she sees Ned, supported by Cat, slowly walking towards them. “Or on your father.”

Cat helps him sit down by the rest of them, and Sandor can see Osha’s work, the tight bandages about his chest under the remains of his bloodied and frayed shirt. 

“Was that… was that my fault?” Sansa goes pale.

“You don’t remember?” grimaces Ned.

She pauses, looking for Sandor’s eyes again and holding them with her own.  “No, no I do remember…. It was… it was Dad’s _brother?!_ ” She looks towards the man sitting cross legged by the water’s edge, guarded by very pissed off Starks.  His head hangs low, but the teeth marks on his cheek are just visible through the long lank hair.  Sandor sees Meera moving closer, cautiously making her way through the half circle of wolves with a bottle of water in her hand.  He watches her give up on him taking it for himself, and instead tips it against his lips until he drinks.  Pack looks after Pack, he thinks.  Even the lost ones like Benjen.  And Sansa.

“I remember… everything I think.”

“We have to talk…” starts Ned.

“There’ll be lots of talking I’m certain of it.  But not now.  Now we get back to town and some warmth.  For the humans at least, okay Ned?” says Cat lightly, but there’s steel in her voice too.  Ned leads the pack, but maybe Cat leads Ned sometimes too, thinks Sandor.

“What do we do with him?” Asks Osha, staring at the near comatose Benjen.

“He’s Pack.  He comes too.” Says Ned firmly.

“Well, yes.  But how are we going to get him to come?”

Sandor barks out the word. “Silver.”

“No!” It’s Meera, standing back again with her brother, but still with the water bottle in her hand. “That’s cruel! That woman had him in silver cuffs for years, training him.  You can’t do that to him again!”

“Any better ideas?”

Meera juts out her chin, still angry at him, but with no suggestion,  it seems.

“I’ll tell him to come.” Says Sansa suddenly. “I made him back down, at the very least he’ll recognise me as a dominant wolf…”

“Oh for fuck’s sake!” They’re all shocked by the tall Reed girl swearing, but even more shocked by her darting through the ring of wolves again and crouching by the man’s side.  She talks so softly to him that they don’t hear a word, but then he’s nodding and shifting into the wolf.  The others get to their feet, wary and ready to fight again, but he flattens his ears and drops his tail as he lowers himself to the earth, submitting.

“Well… that’s unusual.” Says Osha.

Cat sighs. “Not another one…”

“What do you mean Cat?” Asks Ned, confusion on his face.  And to be honest, Sandor feels the same.

“Nevermind.  Let’s get back to the cars before we humans freeze to death!”

Ned looks to the wolves, to Robb in particular. “Meet us back at the bar.”  The wolf nods which would be comical if Sandor wasn’t certain that he’s starting to bleed through his bandages.  Bronn’s is probably a good idea.  He feels Bronn and Osha helping him up, and then suddenly Sansa’s there, taking over, shifting into the wolf girl to take his weight all on her own.  He watches the other wolves racing into the dark, a black shadow slinking along behind them.

“I’m glad you didn’t go with them little wolf.” He whispers into her ear as they stagger together to the woods and she nuzzles against his shoulder.

The ragged group of exhausted Starks and friends of Starks eventually makes it back through the woods, slogging their way to the cars and the heart stopping memory that the tyres had already been slashed by the Lannisters.

Sandor bites his tongue not to swear the air blue, especially when they all realise that Jamie, and Cersei’s body are gone.  Deep footprints, a lone man’s carrying something heavy, head into the woods away from where they came.

“Fuck!” Says Jojen, earning a clip around the ear from Meera. “Hypocrite!” he smirks at her.

But on the ground, near the blood  soaked snow and the silver cuffs are car keys.

“Right.  There’s warm clothes in the boots of our cars, as well as more water, torches and instant gel warmers.  Osha, Ygritte, help Sansa to dress, and get a jumper on Sandor.  Pack the weapons away in the boots as well.  Then we’ll look for the Lannisters’ car.” Ned wearily gives the orders and it all gets done without complaint.  Sansa even submits to Osha’s fussing again, being put into warm clothes even though she doesn’t really need them, just as Ned and Sandor are covered up too by the women, new tops and coats put carefully over their bandages.  But seeing her, even with a dirty face and tangled hair, back in the jeans and sloppy jumper of a woman out for a Sunday stroll in the woods, makes him feel like he’s really got her back.  However much the old dog likes the wolf girl when she’s naked…

It takes another short walk to find the Lannister car, already whitened by a thin blanket of snow.  But there’s nine of them and there’s no way they’ll all fit in the four by four, even if they have the lighter ones sit on the larger.  Not that he’d mind Sansa nestling against him on the drive.  His back pressed against the seats would be screaming all the way no doubt, but he wouldn’t mind it.

“The wounded go home first.” Announces Ned, “Send the others back for us as soon as you can.”

“That includes you Ned.” points out Cat.

“I can wait.”

But then they’re interrupted by the bright, eye blinding beam of a large car trundling down the track towards them in the dark.

“Police?!” Says Meera.

“Park Rangers.” Says Ned. “Bronn, you speak for us.  I’ll hang back with Sandor and Sansa. We can’t let them see our injuries.”

A tall woman and a shorter man get out of the tall car.  She’s got cropped blond hair and a broad, homely face, and the shorter man has been trying to grow a moustache without much luck. 

“Hello there?” She swings a torch towards them, and Sansa curls into Sandor’s side.

“Hello! You don’t know how pleased we are to see you!”

“We had a call that there were some people in trouble out here?”

“That we are! Flat tyres! Well, almost all of them.  This car’s all right but there’s just too many of us” Bronn smiles warmly, shading his eyes against her light.

“What are you all doing out here at this time of night?! The snow’s coming in again!”

“Looking for a lost friend.” Says Bronn, and Sandor feels Sansa tensing against him.  He strokes her hair.  “A man-” Bronn continues before the man cuts him off.

“You should have called us, mister!” Yelps the man, in a voice not far from puberty Sandor thinks.

“Thank you! I think we see that now! Was it a woman that called you, saying we were in trouble? Pretty sounding?”

The Officer glares at him but turns to the moustached youth. “Pod? Was it a woman? ‘Pretty sounding’?” she snaps, sarcastically.

“Nope, Officer Tarth, it was a man.”

“That important?”

“Not really.  Just curious. Well, we didn’t find our friend, Jaime Lannister, so if _you_ could…”

“We’ll get you back first.  Then we’ll take some details, and _then_ we’ll get a search party… a _professional_ search party… together.  I don’t think you folks know how easy it is to get yourself killed out here in the cold!”

Sandor holds Sansa close to him as Bronn drives them back to Bearpaw in the Lannisters’ car, following the Park Ranger’s vehicle.  He stares out the window towards the dark woods as she slowly drifts into sleep, lying next to him but trying not to touch him for fear of hurting his back.  He wants to talk but this isn’t the time or the place, with Bronn and Cat in front of them and Ned next to her, the wounded still hiding themselves from the officers. 

But he’s happy that they will have a chance of a ‘time’ and a ‘place’ again.

In her sleep her fingers move, and he moves a hand from his thigh to take her hand in his. He realises his mistake a second later, but she doesn't whimper in pain, so she must be healing.

A smile finds his twisted lips.


	21. Chapter 21

Sandor grinds his teeth so hard that he’s certain the noise of it is echoing around the near empty bar.  But Ned’s in his own world of pain now that Jeyne’s already finished working on him and he’s stretched out in a booth, waiting for the pills to do their job.  And Cat’s too wrapped up in him to hear either, creases of concern on that elegant face as she sits by him.   Robb’s there, acting as Jeyne’s extra hands as she sews, but his face is carefully blank in the face of Sandor’s pain, respecting it after everything that’s happened, Sandor fucking supposes.  And if Benjen feels any fucking guilt for putting him face down on a table with a fucking needle going in and out through his skin, he aint showing it.  The hollow man is slumped on a barstool, staring down at his hands with dead eyes.  Looking for the ice and frost most like, even though the silver’s long gone.

Sandor feels… _sorry_ for him.  Which is a fucking surprise after the lost Stark sliced and diced his back.    But looking at the tall man in Bronn’s borrowed clothes he can only see Sansa, the wolf girl as well, lost and alone, driven crazy by grief.  What if she had been found by people like the Lannisters?  Or _them_ , in point of fucking fact?!  Would she have spent the last six years in silver? Would that have been the worst thing to have happened to her?!  Fuck, they wanted to _breed_ her with her own uncle! The anger makes his skin twitch.

“Sandor, please, you have to lay still.” whispers Jeyne.  It’s late, or early depending on your point of view, and all the other Starks are long gone, sneaking into his, Sansa’s, and Gendry’s rooms at the guesthouse.  Fucking hell, if Nan finds the jumble of Stark bodies sleeping in the beds and on the floors tomorrow… _this_ morning… then all her wickedest daydreams will seem to have come fucking true at once!  But Jeyne whispers, because Ned is now slumping against Cat, and curled up in a ball, asleep, in another booth is Meera, Jeyne’s knife in hand and Margaery’s flight jacket over her shoulders.  Bronn’s been taken away by the pilot to wherever she bloody stays when she’s in Bearpaw after doing hours of paperwork at the Ranger station.  The man deserves a bit of fucking ‘R and R’ after his performance there, Sandor grudgingly admits.  There’s no way he could have kept that charm running as long as Bronn had with the dour Officer Tarth. Hell, he couldn’t even had got it started, fucking scars or no. Which reminds him…

“I want to look again.” His words come out mumbled, his lips against the table, but she hears.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea Sandor.” Jeyne is pretty, soft seeming, but underneath her words is the resolute determination of a nurse who’s dealt with tricky patients before.  “Robb shouldn’t have shown you the first time.”

“I want to fucking see!” He raises himself and the pain lays him low again.

“I need him to concentrate on helping me…”

But Robb’s passing the phone to him again, and Sandor shifts as much as he can with the pain and the young woman’s gentle but firm hands on his back holding him still.  He moves just enough to lift the screen to the side of his face not lying on the table.   He brings the phone to life and the image is still there.  In the dark of the bar the flash has maybe whitened his skin, possibly making the contrast between the jagged red tears and his flesh worse.  But there’s no denying they look fucking horrendous, oozing blood and so deep they’re black in parts.

“And now?”

“I’m sewing you up as best I can, Sandor.  But…”

“But it’s bad.”

“It should have been worse! A werewolf can easily sever a man’s spine.  And he _should_ have got past Ned’s ribs to his heart…”

With his face pressed to the table as she puts the patchwork of his back together again he doesn’t feel fucking lucky. He lets the phone drop to the floor, not that much of a distance with his arms hanging down from the table and Robb collects from there, not even complaining.

“I’m saying, I don’t think he wanted to hurt you, any of you.”Jeyne tries again.

Sandor’s eyes flick to the dark hulk by the bar, the one still staring at his hands.

“And she won’t care how it looks.  I know she won’t.” Jeyne says softly, even as she pulls the needle through again urging a grimace from him.  He’d refused the local anaesthetic when she offered it to him, a thousand or so stitches ago.  Upstairs, asleep in Bronn’s bed, is the reason he wants to feel every single one of them.

But still he finds his mind wandering as it tries to avoid the pull and tug of the thread through him, even if he wants to concentrate on his penance.

And it returns to Benjen.  Benjen _fucking_ Stark. 

The man hasn’t spoken a word since Sansa bit him, he just followed the Pack to Bronn’s and sat where he was told to sit, ate what he was given, drank when Meera held the bottle up to him.  She and Osha had even had to dress him, taking some of Bronn’s offered things and shrugging them on over his lanky body.  Jeyne had pronounced him underfed and dehydrated, but anything else more likely to be permanent had already been healed by the direwolves’ strange powers. Osha had still cursed and spat at the memory of the Lannisters while Meera had looked at the man with big green, sorrow filled, eyes.  Which gave him an idea… an idea that distracted him for moment longer from the stitching going on behind him … if the man stood any chance of making it back from the wild, he needed a fucking mate…

Osha was younger than Benjen, but the gap was less than with him and Sansa he bloody supposed. The ex-primary school teacher was fierce, abrasive even, but maybe the man could do with someone who would tell him to shape up.  And she wasn’t _un-_ attractive, he thought, wondering if that mattered at all to direwolves when they chose their human mates.  Maybe not, given the wolf girl and him, he thought darkly.  He decided to mention it to Ned when everything had calmed down, see if there was anything he could do as ‘Pack Leader’, or whatever he was bloody called. Anything he could do to urge them both along…

But then there were footsteps on the stairs leading down from the flat above, and even Ned stirred from his half sleep to look towards the pale girl standing there in Bronn’s Alaskan Aces shirt.  Jeyne had a quick hand on Sandor’s shoulder even as he started to try and rise.

Sansa padded slowly down the steps in her bare feet, long hair combed out and the smudges of river dirt washed clear from her face.  Sandor had needed to swallow jealousy when Bronn had carried her from their car up to his bed above the bar, Margaery following after like a concerned hen.  But then… he’d been carried in himself, Robb and Jon holding him up under his arms before they got him to a table to wait his turn to see the nurse after Ned. But seeing her now, the care that they had taken of her, all he feels is gratitude.  Bronn might have put a line through his ledger and through Sandor’s name, but he feels like a new account has been opened, and he’s not sure that he can ever pay it all off.

The Starks pause, holding back as she takes the final step into the bar.  He sees her look from Benjen in the shadows by the bar, to Ned and Cat, to him, and then finally to Robb and Jeyne.  And then he hears her gasp as she sees Jeyne’s pregnant belly.  She’s over in a moment, all that trepidation lost as she tries to run across six years of life lost and lives changed.  But as she gets closer her fingertips drift slowly over his upper arm, raising the hairs there.  It’s the smallest of touches, and it almost seems like she does it without noticing.  But he notices.

“Can I?” Sansa begins, and then she pauses and corrects herself.  And for a moment he’s afraid that it’s the librarian’s cold voice talking through her, but it’s Sansa.  Sansa who is polite, and kind, and so very careful of not causing offence. “I’m sorry. I’m Sansa.  I don’t believe we have met before?”

“I’m Jeyne.  No.  No we’ve never met before.” So Jeyne was never one of the watchers? Perhaps it was because of the baby, but that would mean she was relatively new to the Pack if they hadn’t got her watching in the five or so years before that…

But then Sandor is distracted by what he can see of Sansa’s face as the nurse lets her rest a gentle hand on her bump. 

Shit. He’s going to have to talk to Cat again about this ‘fertility’ issue between human men and direwolf women!  And it’s not just because he can see how bloody happy Sansa looks at the thought of a baby Stark. It’s more because he has just felt a whisper of happiness himself, a murmur of how he would feel if he was the one gently caressing Sansa’s belly, their baby inside.

And then Sansa shifts into the wolf girl and the room tenses for a second as she sniffs the air.  But just as quick, the silver light is there again and she’s back, just as he has seen Arya do it.

“It’s a boy?”

Jeyne smiles and nods, looking at Robb. “So Robb tells me.  We’ve not had a scan to find out the gender, because… well, I trust direwolf noses.”

Sansa is laughing lightly. Laughing with the nurse who trusts magical creatures over medicine! And it’s not enough, not really, it’s not the final piece in the patchwork of her that they’re going to put back together, but it’s a beginning.

“Sandor.” She whispers, eyes finally drifting from Jeyne to him.  He should be jealous about that too he supposes, but that touch, as brief as it was, had kept him alive while she reconnected with her lost family. “Oh, Sandor, your back!”

“Aint nothing, little wolf.  And yes, I know that’s a double fucking negative, Miss Librarian.” He laughs deeply, but then Jeyne’s tying off now, covering him over with a padded square before Robb helps him to sit up on the table so she can run bandages about him.

“Show me how to do it?” Sansa asks Jeyne and then the two of them are carefully wrapping the linen around him, Sansa moving round him, appearing and then vanishing behind him in a strangely enticing game of hide and seek about his bare chest, a blush on her cheeks as he stares down at her.

“Maybe we should go to the guesthouse now Ned.” Cat is saying. “Let them get some sleep.  Arya texted saying that there’s still room… well plenty, now that she’s broken into a few of the other rooms.”

Ned frowns for a moment at his other daughter’s actions, and then nods, he’s obviously exhausted himself.

“I can show you how to change the bandages tomorrow Sansa.” Says Jeyne and then she helps Sansa pin them about his chest before starting to pack away her kit.  She passes him a couple of pills before moving towards the door with Robb.  “For the pain.  They’ll knock you out a bit as well.  And I wouldn’t try anything… _strenuous_ for quite a while.”

Ned coughs awkwardly and then Meera stirs. Benjen’s suddenly on his feet then, as the tall girl stretches, and he catches the pilot’s jacket with a darting quickness as it falls from her.  “Thank you.” She says lightly, and the man’s lips twitch towards a smile as he gives it back to her and she puts it on.

“You’ll come with us, Benjen.” Says Ned, speaking slowly and with authority, and the thin man nods.  “We’ll go somewhere safe… where you can sleep.”

“Thank you.” The words come out awkwardly, and the emphasis on them is near identical to how Meera had said them moments before.  But the man follows, Meera walking after him, as the tired Starks make their way out of the door so Sansa can lock it with the keys Robb passes her.  And then it’s just the two of them again, as it was before.

She walks back to where he sits on the table, eyes lowered until she reaches him, and he carefully raises an arm to touch his fingertips to her chin and to make her look up at him.

“Sansa…”

“I’m sorry.  I’m so, so sorry.” Her eyes are filling.  Human tears.

“I’m sorry too.  For lying to you.  For not telling you about your family-”

“I got you hurt!”

“I hurt you.  But I still don’t think we’re even. Maybe I can make it up to you…”

He doesn’t mean it to sound the way it does, but it brings a smile to her face. “Jeyne said-”

“Aye, she did.  And she’s right. I’ll be out of action for a while.  But share a bed with me anyways?”

“Of course I will, Sandor.”

 She panics as he slides carefully from the table, even though his feet were near the ground anyway.  He can walk, slowly. But then the wolf girl is there again, making him put an arm about her.  The tightness in his back complains, but his legs are weaker than he expected and he needs her strength to get up the stairs to Bronn’s flat and the crumpled bed there. He insists on making the last few steps himself, and she changes again.

“You should have stayed asleep.”

“I dreamt of you.  I dreamt we were running together in the woods.  And then I woke and I had to come and find you.”

She helps him lower himself to the bed after undoing his jeans and pulling them from him, leaving his underwear on.  He supposes it should be erotic, but he’s too shattered for any part of him to react to being undressed by her careful hands.  On the bed he turns his head to face her as she lies down beside him, ignoring the pull of the stitches to get his hand up just enough to spread the range of it across her belly over the Aces shirt.  The good side of his face is gone, buried into the pillows and he hates what she can see now, the twisting scars on his ugly mug, the yards of white bandages on his back, the legs that can barely hold him now.  What fucking use is he like this?!

“Sandor… I… I love you.”

He stops breathing.

“I wasn’t sure before.  Because I was afraid that it was the wolf’s feelings I was experiencing.  But now… now we are together, the wolf and I.  And I can see what she was feeling wasn’t something separate to me, but my feelings… _intensified_.”

Her face is inches from his own and he can see every emotion written there.

“When the wolf comes it’s like everything is clearer. I don’t see as well as I do as a human.  And the smells can be confusing.  But she’s simpler.  She hunts what she wants, with no uncertainty, no fear.  And she wanted you from the beginning.  Because I did.  Even if it was buried under human overthinking and-”

“Sansa. I love you too.” She smiles happily, and wriggles down even closer to him, until his face is millimetres from hers.  And all she must be able to see now is his fucking scars.  “And if you want someone as old and broken as me…”

“Oh shush!” It’s a gentle reprimand but her lips on his are softer yet. When she pulls away from him, her eyes are still near closed, and he feels the dead weight of his own.  But then she starts to sing.

Its wordless, a sweet harmony improvised under her breath and he’s surprised, because he never knew she could sing.  And she sings so fucking sweetly, he feels his brows unknitting, the pain easing even if he palmed the pills Jeyne gave him, his breath evening out as sleep calls him. The silver light makes his eyes open a crack or so though, and he watches the wolf girl take the song from Sansa as she lies next to him.  No that’s not right, she hasn’t taken it, she’s added to it.  There’s still the sweet harmony from Sansa's human throat, but twining about it is a deeper tone that is somewhere between a song and a soft growl.  And her silver eyes are all he can see, the soft light from them and her change flowing across his vision as he finally falls asleep.

***

He wakes and stretches.  And the curse is on already his lips, ready for the pain.  But it doesn’t come.

He opens his eyes to find himself curled about her, her hands holding his to her belly as the bright light from outside rebounds off of streets covered in snow.  And nothing hurts.

It itches.  Goddamit it fucking itches! He wants to roll onto his back and wriggle in an unmanly way against the sheets until it stops, but that would tear the stitches until he bleeds like a stuck fucking pig over Bronn’s sheets so he clenches his eyes tightly shut to block out the feeling.  Itch, itch, itch!

“Sandor? Are you okay?”

“It itches!” He sounds grumpy, he sounds like a grumpy old dog with a sore head, but he doesn’t fucking care.  A dog could go find a fucking tree for this fucking itch and scratch against it until he groaned! But he’s more fucking sensible. “She didn’t say it would itch like this.  Been patched up before and it never itched like this until it was near done healing.  Grrr.” He growls and Sansa turns herself carefully to look at him, and he forgets the itch for a moment in the light of her face next to his.

“Maybe there’s something wrong with the stitches.  Maybe I should take a look…”

“No offense, little wolf, but maybe we should go up to the guesthouse and see what Jeyne makes of it.”

Her smile is small and self-depreciating.  “Maybe you are right.” It widens. “I like it when you call me little wolf, Sandor.”  She snuggles closer and lays her lips against his.   Fucking hell, avoiding ‘strenuous activities’ is going to be fucking difficult if she keeps this up, torn up back or not!  In fact, his body is finally starting to respond to the closeness of her, the scent of her…

“Come on lass.” He carefully pulls himself up, but there’s no flare of pain as the patchwork of his back stretches and settles.  He frowns as he stands up, testing his back with some stretches, not caring that he’s near naked in just his shorts.

“Sandor… that’s _very_ distracting.”  He looks back to her bright red face as she sits on the bed, twisting his entire torso as he does, and again being surprised at the lack of pain.

“Maybe you should have a look underneath after all, Sansa. Something’s… not right.”

She steps over and unwraps him quickly, her lips pursed and her frown clear as her concern grows.  And then she’s standing behind him, a loose bundle of bandages in one hand, the other carefully touching his bare back and making him shiver.

“This isn’t possible!”

“What’s wrong?!”

“Sandor… the stitches are falling out.  You’re healing!” She moves closer and he feels her hot breath on his back, which only urges his body into a stronger response.  “There are still marks, long scars… but some of the wounds are nearly completely healed!”

“I need to see!” He looks about the simple room.  “Fucking Bronn, you’d expect him to have a proper fucking mirror! Get clothes on, we’re heading up to the guesthouse where there are camera phones.” He barks out the order, worry in his tone too, but she doesn’t move.  Instead her fingertips run beside the lines of his healing wounds and then down to the waistband of his shorts.  He feels her move closer, the material of her borrowed shirt skimming his back, the lines of his wounds, as her fingertips skim into the elastic and then trail around to the front of his underwear.

“Sansa… Jeyne said….” There’s warning in his voice, but desire as well.

“Jeyne doesn’t know about this.  She doesn’t know about the healing…” Her hands are delving into the front of his underwear now, running lightly over the hardness of him, then grasping him firmly.  He turns quickly, still expecting a flare of pain that doesn’t come, and kisses her fiercely, pulling her closer in a strong move that has her gasping.  And then _he’s_ gasping because it’s the wolf girl kissing him with those sharper teeth, and then it’s Sansa again as she moves fluidly between two of her shapes.

“What’s it like?” He breathes into her mouth as her hand starts to stroke him again, making him groan loudly. “When you change?”

“It used to be like getting drunk and passing out.  Now it’s like… dreaming, but knowing that you are.” She changes again and the wolf girl pushes him suddenly onto the bed, onto his back, which doesn’t complain at all.  Even when she straddles him, the wolf girl rubbing herself all over him and nuzzling his neck as she had done a million years ago in the trailer, his back is sensitive but not sore.  It’s as though the flesh is feeling the sheets for the first time, but it’s not screaming its agony to him anymore.  She shifts forms again, pulling down at his shorts and freeing him completely.

“I love you, Sandor. I _love_ you.” She breathes as he pushes at the shirt and exposes her, palming her breasts and making her change once again, making her croon as the wolf as much as she did as the girl, before stripping her completely.

“Mine!” She growls as she arches her back and he runs his fingers back down to the join of her, where they find her clit and her wetness, before she moves her thighs and places herself above him completely.  When she pushes down onto him he closes his eyes in bliss and doesn’t know if it’s the wolf girl or the human he’s with.  Even as she starts to move slowly, rolling her hips and urging more moans from him, she growls, and the noise could still be coming from the girl who’s embraced her wolf finally.  When she shudders and he feels her first orgasm running through her, tightening her about him, the moan is still wolfish, even if her fingertips on the hair of his chest are soft and gentle, free of wounding nails.  Her second is breathy, she can’t even moan as he relishes the absence of pain in his back and grinds up into her, holding her hips in his large hands as he uses his returned strength.  And the third is a cry of freedom, as they come together.

Breathing heavily, she lies down on him, and now it’s the human girl who kisses and strokes his face.  His ruined, scarred face that she has touched more in the past few months than anyone ever has, perhaps even him.

“There are scars?” He asks eventually, his breath returned.

“Hmmm?” She’s a slight weight lying on him, still connected to him as he softens.

“There are still scars? On my back.”

“Yes.  Are you worried that it matters? Your scars are you, Sandor. I’m sorry if I stared at all when we first met-”

“No more than most.” He pulls her closer. 

“At least these were gained for a good reason.  You were protecting me, Sandor, and I will never forget that, scars or not.”  She kisses him lightly, and sighs.  “I almost don’t want to get up, but I imagine Bronn will want his flat back at some point.  And we do have some important questions for Jeyne.”

She sits up, moving away from him, and he wants her back immediately.  Wants her lying next to him forever, her sweet face inches from his own as it had been…

“You sang to me last night.  It’s the last thing I remember.”

“I used to like singing, before… before everything happened.  That must have been the first time in six years.” She smiles shyly, her long hair drifting down to hide her face, so he pushes it back. “I’m embarrassed now, it probably wasn’t very good.”

“I think it might have been just what I bloody needed.  We’ll be needing to talk to your father too, I’m certain of it.  Go get clean, little wolf.” He smiles as she leaps from the bed and darts to the shower in her wolf girl shape as he lies there reliving her touches, and how she’d felt when he’d pushed quickly into the hot warmth of her. 

He remembers then that they hadn’t taken any precautions, but he supposes it doesn’t really matter anymore, if Cat is right.  And in fact, hadn’t they also forgotten that one time in the shower at the guesthouse as well?  He raises and folds his arms above his head as he lies on the bed and is pleased that there is only a slight pulling sensation from the skin of his back rather than the raging storm of fire and pain he expects.  That they don’t have to bother with condoms any more is an interesting development that has him lying there and daydreaming even more, this time about surprising her more regularly and in more unexpected locations… even if there’s a hidden pain waiting there behind the realisation.  Waiting for them some way down the road, he hopes, since Sansa is so young and she hasn’t even mentioned wanting children yet. 

Then he thinks about her face as she touched Jeyne’s bump, and he wonders how much time they really have before that pain finds them.  Until it finds them both, if he’s fucking honest, as surprising as that is to him. 

But Sansa has changed _everything_.


	22. Chapter 22

“Can I put my bloody shirt back on now?!”

He doesn’t want to snap, doesn’t want the frustration to come through in his voice.  But it’s there; dark, and edged like a knife because he’s fucking tired of being a spectacle for the Starks. He gets it, he really fucking does.  A new trick for the old direwolf family.  And he’s even pleased to see Ned talking with Sansa about something completely un-bloody related to her runaway years away from them.  And he adores seeing her glow like this, lit up  with something between embarrassment at being the focus of attention, and pride that she’s the one who's healed him.  And that light is softened with her compassion for him and her pleasure that his back is whole again… except for the scars…

His frown deepens as he stares away from them, out through the French doors of his room, out into the gardens of the guesthouse where two young wolves are playing like puppies in the virgin snow with the giant, Hodor.  The boy man whoops loudly as the larger of the two takes quick advantage of him kneeling to pack together a snowball and leaps up onto his wide back.  And then Hodor’s jogging around with the wolf hanging on there, his tongue lolling out in joy.

“Of course, Sandor, please dress yourself.” Ned says absent-mindedly, and Sandor snaps the shirt back over his shoulders as Jeyne smiles apologetically at him.  “Sansa… perhaps you could try singing… for me.” Ned gestures wryly to the bandages across his wounded chest. 

She nods, standing in front of her father, clasping her hands together, looking like a fucking angel.  Her voice is cautious at first and Sandor doesn’t recognise the song.  Something modern maybe.  Not the gentle sounds without lyrics she’d sung for him. When nothing happens she tries the same wordless murmuring, and it’s a sweet fucking sound.  Ned’s smile is encouraging, but it’s not the smile of man surprised at being healed.

“Perhaps… perhaps it is something that only works for mated pairs?” Suggests Cat, sitting lightly on the arm of the chair Ned has taken in Sandor’s room. Bloody comfortable they look too, in his bloody room.  In point of fact, all the Starks have settled into the guesthouse just like it’s theirs.  Sandor’d heard from a smirking Osha about how Old Nan had looked set to hitch a bloody fit finding all the new faces milling in the halls and bickering in the lock picked bedrooms.  Until Ned took her to one side, passed her a dram from some hidden flask… and since that the old lady’s been whistling a pleased tune to herself.  What he’s offered the old biddy Sandor don’t know.  But surely the Stark man can’t afford to rent out the whole bloody place for the pack? And for how long…?

“Hmmm” Ned rubs his stubbled chin. “Gendry’ll be back with Rob, Jon and Ygritte in a bit, once they get our vehicles back on the road and back into town.  Arya… wherever she is… can have a go then.”   

Sansa winces. “Arya’s voice is-”

“ _What_ exactly?” A shadow at the doorway asks pointedly, and the younger Stark girl saunters in, checking out Sandor’s room.

“Perhaps not your best feature, sweetling.” Says Cat diplomatically, but the comment is ignored as the two girls stare at each other.

“I’m sorry I-“ begins Sansa, and Sandor never finds out if she’s sorry for criticising Arya’s singing, for attacking her for getting too close to her mate, or for running away six bloody years ago.

“You wanna go hunt?”

Arya says it lightly, like it’s the least important thing she’s ever said. But Sandor doesn’t believe that for a fucking minute.

“Yes.” Breathes Sansa.

“Stay away from town… and the logging territory.  And don’t bring down anything big, Arya!  Let’s not draw attention!” Ned grumbles but both girls are already starting to strip.  Sandor frowns, this is going to take some fucking getting used to… but then a naked Sansa’s on her tiptoes and kissing him, making him weak again. 

“I’ll be back soon.  I need to do this.” She whispers in his good ear.

“I’ll be here when you get back.”

“Good.” There’s a strange mischief in her eyes that thrills him.  He’s never hunted.  Not animals anyways.  But he remembers what adrenaline does, or at least what it does to him, and he’s already looking to her return as he watches her and Arya slip quickly into their between forms and run together from the room, two streaks of fur and flesh. 

Then Sandor watches Jeyne packing away her first aid kit, pretending a sudden interest in all that rather than acknowledge the tears Cat is whisking away from her eyes, or the comforting rub Ned gives her shoulder.

A shriek from out in the corridor tells them that their departure wasn’t entirely unnoticed. 

“Old Nan’s not going to be long for this world if your kids keep running past her naked.” Growls Sandor to Ned.

“We already had a discussion about that.  She’s from a fairly old family herself, has a few stories about her ancestors that I’m going to get down in full one day soon.  She’s just still… adjusting.”

There’s a lull, an awkward pause as the room comes to terms with not having Sansa in it to bring them all together, and to give them something to talk about.  Sandor clears his throat, but Ned beats him to it.

“Maybe you want to rest Sandor.  However Sansa’s managed to heal you, you’ve still been through a trying few days.” Ned starts to get up from the chair and Cat moves to help him.

“Wait.” Sandor snaps, regretting the tone again. “Please. Please, I need to talk to you.  All of you in fact.” He looks at the sweet brunette nurse who nods and puts down her kit beside her as she takes a seat on his bed, sighing as she gets the weight off of her feet.

“It’s that I want to talk to you about.” He looks pointedly at Jeyne’s bump, and forces out the word.  “Babies.”

“Ah.  So Cat’s spoken with you about that?” Ned settles again in the chair. “She knows as much as me-”

“You’re a nurse.  Is there a cure?” Sandor looks down at Jeyne, who smiles wanely.

“I’m not a scientist Sandor. And even if I was, Sansa’s a direwolf.  We don’t even know if science applies to creatures who can magically change their shape-”

“So… a magical cure?” Sandor straightens his shoulders. “We’ll find it.  You said you have histories? Books and the like?”

“Sandor.” Ned’s voice is warm but full of caution. “I appreciate your attitude.  I guess we were all concerned about how you’d fit into the family.” Sandor fights a snort of self-derision. “But we’ve had Gendry in the family for years so this isn’t exactly the first time we’ve thought about this.  There’s nothing in the few texts we have.  There’s nothing in the diaries of the Starks from a few hundred years ago.  Nothing in the stories they collected from _their_ grandparents.  All we know is that direwolf seed is strong, and human seed is… _different_.”

“Different?” Sandor fights off any embarrassment.  This is for Sansa.  And him. “You mean weaker.”

“You’ve seen Sansa heal.  I don’t think I need to go into the details-“

“The sperm can’t penetrate the egg. We think.” Says Jeyne flatly. 

“Thank you Jeyne.” Ned smiles at the nurse.

“But Jon…” Starts Sandor.

Ned’s face darkens as he remembers, and Cat strokes a hand on his arm.

“Had a human father, yes.  As far as we know.  Lyanna never told us who he was.  It’s possible he was descended from another family that had a connection to the old ways.  Or he was just a… strong man.”

“I’m pretty fucking strong!” Sandor snaps.

“No one denies that.  And no one is questioning your ability to protect Sansa.  You’ve done so much already.” Says Cat softly.  “I’m sorry that we can’t give you any more hope than that.”

“So that’s it then?!”

“Or we wait and see.  She’s young.  And as you say, you’re strong. Perhaps in time it will happen.” Cat smiles warmly. “You really do want children?”

“Aye.” He says simply. “With her.”

Cat gets up quickly, and before he knows it she’s hugging him! And if he felt awkward with his shirt off in front of her, this is a hundred times worse! He’d thought her the librarian plus a few years, but there’s a softness to her that’s in Sansa too.

“Well” coughs Ned. “We won’t give up on finding a more concrete solution-“

Osha pops her head into the room. “Can someone relieve the little idiot, she’s dead on her feet!”

“What’s that?” Asks Ned.

“Meera.  She’s been guarding Benjen all bloody night.  Wouldn’t let Ygritte or me take over.  And now Ygritte’s with the boys getting the trucks, and I’ve got a hysterical old woman to calm down in the kitchen because the girls ran past her while naked… and you know, half _wolf!_ ”

“What about Jojen?” Asks Cat.

“Meditating again. And Bran and Rickon are playing in the snow with the giant.  Look, I don’t care who bloody does it, but someone’s got to get that girl away from his door and into her bed!”

“I’ll go.” Says Sandor before he knows he’s going to volunteer.  And all their faces turn to him in surprise. He shrugs. “I’m pack too, aren’t I?”

Ned nods, and Sandor follows Osha to where the tall Reed girl is leaning against the doorframe to a second floor bedroom, barely able to keep her eyes open.  She has a silver dagger in hand, and for a moment, in her exhaustion, she raises it at them.  Sandor takes two quick steps and disarms her.

“Ouch!”

“You’re no use to us at the moment.  Go to bed. That’s an order.” He barks.

“But- But- I’m to make sure he doesn’t-”

“He’s not going to do anything. Trust me.”

Osha steps forward and pulls at the girl, who follows after her with heavy feet.  “You’re only a few doors down Meera, with me.  I’m sure you’ll hear if anything happens.” The older woman says, soothing her.

Sandor scoffs, she’s going to be dead to the world moments after her head hits the pillow.

He takes up his position in front of the door, crossing arms across his chest, staring into space.  But he’s unclear on whether he’s meant to be protecting the rest of them from the man, or protecting the black wolf himself. Either way, time passes too fucking slowly and he finds his mind running over his conversation with Ned, Cat and Jeyne.

But the first low howl knocks him out of the vicious circle his mind is running on, and Sandor bursts into the room.  Spread out on the bed, on his side, is the black wolf, feet jittering and jumping as he runs his way through some nightmare. 

Let sleeping dogs lie, they say.  But what about sleeping werewolves newly returned to their pack who might howl louder any minute and bring the whole house to action stations? He settles for pulling at the bed spread, keeping his distance, until the wolf’s back legs slide towards the floor which makes it jump in surprise.  Moments later there’s a naked man crouched on the bed, snapping his teeth at him.

“Oh fucking _stop_ that!” Barks Sandor straight back. “Or I’ll get Sansa to beat you up again!”

The man pauses and cowers.

“Good boy.” Sandor smiles at the weirdness of telling this older, hobo looking man, that he’s a good boy.  He grabs at some trousers slung on the back of a chair and chucks them at him. “Put these on.  I’ve seen too many naked Starks today.”

Benjen dresses.  He’s painfully thin, his stomach concave as he hitches the too big trousers up around his naked hips.  There’s a plate or two of demolished food on the floor, near licked clean, so at least they’re trying to get him healthy again.  But will he ever be entirely healthy in his head after what the Lannisters did to him?

“Nightmares?” Sandor says, watching the man curl up against the headboard. “Yeah, well, they can go away, you know.” He realises he hasn’t had a bad dream since… since Sansa he guesses.

“Osha’s looking out for you.” It’s not entirely the case.  But no one else noticed that the Reed girl was doing all the guard duty, so perhaps the wild haired teacher was thinking about the man.

“Osha?” He sounds out the name like he’s unused to speaking.  Maybe he is.

“The Lannisters really did a fucking number on you.” Sandor spits out the words, and watches the man flinch at the name. “Gone now.  Safe.” He tries simpler words like he’d done with the wolfgirl, and Benjen looks up at him through strands of dark hair.

“Pack?” the black wolf says finally.

“Aye, pack. You. And me too, I guess.” He’d volunteered because he was pack, but what did that really mean?  He’d got caught up in asking about babies of all things, when he should have been asking Ned about the pack’s plans.  Now they had Sansa back would they return to England? It’d been fucking years since he’d been that side of the pond.  Did he want that? The thought of not going with Sansa was an aching wound in his heart that no amount of singing would stitch up.  But would she want to go with them? Or would she want to carry on without them again? Sandor imagined the wolfgirl as she no doubt was now; running through the woods with her pack sister for the first time since she’d changed and killed that cunt Joffrey.  She wouldn’t want to give that up, would she?

“I’m pack.  Got myself a proper fucking family now, haven’t I?” He sat down on the bed and cursed himself for giving up on drinking.  A whiskey in one of Ned’s hidden flasks would go down a fucking treat about now.  Maybe the man wolf would want some too.  The two new additions to the pack could get nicely buzzed together and laugh about the twists that life takes.  If the poor man could still laugh.

“Not… sure?”

“‘Not sure this is what I want?’” Sandor shrugged. “Maybe not.”

“Change.  That’ll change when the baby comes.” Benjen whispered, his first complete sentence.

“Jeyne’s baby? Another Stark? Can’t see how that’ll change much.  S’pose Sansa’s going to be happy about being an aunt.  And if she’s happy-” He pictured her holding the baby in some kind of blanket, all bound up and cradled by Sansa’s gentle arms.  If she were happy, then aye, he’d be happy with this new family.  Other people’s babies and all.

But he was worried how long that happiness would really last if he wasn’t ‘strong’ enough for her.  Fuck.

“When the baby comes, you’ll be pack. Inside.”

“Sure mate. I’d drink to that, but I don’t have anything-”

The long groan broke the silence of the house. Seconds after it passed, Meera was back, storming through the door, taking in the two of them sitting on the bed.

“Did you hurt him?!”

“Of course I fucking didn’t! That was a woman moaning anyway!”

The sound of footsteps running up the wooden stairs preceded Osha’s wild charge into the room.

“It’s starting! But Robb’s not here!”

Meera and Sandor looked at her blankly, but Benjen smiled.  The first smile Sandor had seen from him. “It’s the Jeyne mate.  It’s time.”

“Meera, get outside.  Tell Bran and Rickon to stop farting about in the snow and get Bran to call Robb.  If he don’t pick up the boy’s going to have to go find him.  He has to get back, _now_. It’s moving fast already.  And Sandor-”

“I’ll get Sansa and Arya.”

“They won’t have gone that far.  Take Rickon, he’ll be able to follow their trail.” Osha looked at Benjen. “And you… just… _sit!”_

She took in their stillness. “Oh come on, get going you idiots! The baby’s coming!”


End file.
